Have you heard of the “Apple” Ping social network? .. Find out the reasons for its failure

publication date:
Aug 15, 2021 11:47 PM GMT

Date of update: August 16, 2021 1:30 p.m. GMT

Many are certainly unaware that the American company “Apple”, the maker of “iPhone”, has a social network called Ping, similar to other famous networks “Facebook”, “Twitter” and “MySpace”, but it was 10 years ago. a few years ago, in the hands of Steve Jobs, the late CEO of the company.

Oddly, Apple restricted its social network and allowed access to Ping through iTunes with version 10.0, where there was a section under the name Ping in the sections of the app.

And this social network, Ping, came with an identical appearance to the appearance of “Facebook”, and it includes elements and features inspired by “Twitter”, which was confirmed by Steve Jobs himself during the conference organized to unveil the social network at the time.

Apple allowed users to find and follow friends, celebrities or artists or view their profiles and posts, and the network included the same number of iTunes users in general, 160 million users, and it offered an integrated user experience capable of competing with “Facebook” and “Apple” Twitter ”.

Reasons for failure

From Apple’s perspective, social media was a growing business, but instead of just launching iSocial, the company decided to combine social activism with its own growth business, Music.

Ping’s integration with iTunes was supposed to be a smart move, but Apple revealed a lack of foresight and investment in social media.

If Facebook was a social platform designed to sell advertisements that matched your core interests, then Ping was a social network designed with the goal of increasing music purchases by revealing what you missed or showing them. other members of your social circle were listening.

And Apple’s social network Ping failed to keep the interest of users and even subscribers alive, and Tim Cook, one of the company’s executives at the time and Steve Jobs’ successor to the head of “Apple” saw that investing in this network was a losing investment.

Apple restricted its network within the app, which made access necessary for downloading and installing the program, which increased the lack of interest in the network, which was announced to be permanently shut down and prevented the registration of new members on September 30, 2012.