September 1, 2010: Apple’s new music-focused social community, Ping, ships as a part of iTunes 10. Apple says the service will let customers uncover new music and extra simply comply with their favourite artists.
Ping racks up 1 million signups within the first 48 hours. However, Apple’s social community is doomed from the beginning.
Ping: Apple launches music social community
Apple beforehand dabbled in social networking (it was the primary important tech firm to promote on Fb). However Ping was Apple’s first try at really launching its personal social community.
Except for following artists, Ping let customers put up ideas and opinions. Anybody may share particulars about favourite albums and songs. Plus, they might view live performance listings and inform mates about upcoming exhibits they deliberate to attend.
“iTunes is the number one music community in the world, with over 160 million iTunes users in 23 countries, and now we’re adding social networking with Ping,” Apple CEO Steve Jobs stated in a press launch. “With Ping you can follow your favorite artists and friends and join a worldwide conversation with music’s most passionate fans.”
In some methods, Apple appeared completely poised to launch a music-focused social community. The corporate projected a cool, youthful picture. Plus, it benefited from brand-loyal clients, extensive attain, good standing within the music group and — due to its success with iTunes and the iPod — a historical past of delivering music-related tech in a method that different firms did not do.
Ping fails to achieve traction
Early on, Apple skilled important success with Ping. Nevertheless, issues went downhill after Cupertino crowed concerning the 1 million customers who signed up within the first 48 hours.
To start out with, Ping didn’t exemplify Apple design at its greatest. It proved too fiddly to make use of, and felt much less like a real social community than an try to promote music by including a veneer of interplay on prime of the iTunes Music Retailer. Plus, Ping lacked Fb integration as a consequence of a (by no means solely defined) breakdown in negotiations between the 2 firms.
In the end, Ping grew to become one other failed try by Apple to enter the web providers area (following its failed MobileMe experiment and the disastrous eWorld launch in 1994).
Apple pulls the plug on Ping social community, focuses on constructing Apple Music
The writing was on the wall for Ping from early 2012, when new Apple CEO Tim Prepare dinner mentioned the service’s lack of traction on the All Issues Digital convention.
“We tried Ping and the customer voted and said, ‘This isn’t something I want to put a lot of energy into,’” Prepare dinner stated. “Some customers love it, but there’s not a huge number that do, so will we kill it? I don’t know. I’ll look at it.” Prepare dinner additionally stated Apple didn’t “need to have a social network.”
Apple shut down Ping on September 30, 2012. Two years later, Apple purchased Beats Electronics for $3 billion and used the acquisition to gas its personal music streaming service. Rebranded as Apple Music, the subscription service launched on June 30, 2015.
With 24/7 radio stations, prime 100 charts and different music-discovery options, Apple Music right this moment fulfills a number of the promise of Ping.
Do you keep in mind Apple’s failed Ping social community? Depart your feedback under.
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