Apple's Ping has fatal pong, says CEO
Social networking fail
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Apple's attempt to build social networking features into iTunes has failed, CEO Tim Cook has admitted. Speaking at the All Things D conference - D is for 'digital', apparently, and not 'deceased' - Cook said Apple had yet to decide the fate of the feature-cum-service.
“We tried Ping and I think the customer voted and said this isn’t something I want to put a lot of energy into," the fruity biz chief said.
Cook also hinted Apple would work more closely with Facebook for its social networking features.
Ping was unveiled in September 2010 in iTunes 10, allowing iTunes users to send playlists and notifications. After a brief flurry of interest it was never heard from again.
Facebook last year improved its music appeal by opening the platform to third-party music providers. Nominally nobody gets favoured nation status, but Spotify has been heavily promoted – and Spotify now only accepts new signups using Facebook's authentication.
It was only Cook's second public interview as Apple CEO. Gizmodo has some quotes here. You haven't missed much. ®
COMMENTS
Re: We All Make Mistakes
Nope, Foxconn-rebrander still in the style guide.
C.
Spotify
"and Spotify now only accepts new signups using Facebook's authentication."
Yeah.
I've yet to work out why music *has* to be social anyway. Is it because "social" is The Next Big Moneymaking Opportunity? I've successfully managed to stop Spotify splurging all of the tracks I listen to onto my Facebook wall (or timeline, or whatever it is called this week) - but to do that I had to selectively revoke enough permissions to prevent this and not enough to make Spotify think it isn't properly "linked" to Facebook.
If the feature were optional fair enough, but I for one don't want to spam my friends with up-to-the-minute updates about what music I'm listening to. Even if I did, I'd want to share it with those friends that I knew had similar tastes to me. And I certainly wouldn't join Spotify if I wasn't already a member just to get this feature.
Don't these companies think things through at all?
Please!!!
Not facebook. I'm begging you, not Facebook. I promise to start using Ping so long as you don't.
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