Apple's social media efforts fail again as Apple Music Connect to shut down in 2019
Musicians on Apple Music are receiving notifications saying that, as of Thursday, they can no longer post new content to Connect, the service's blog-style platform for reaching out to fans.
An earlier incarnation of Connect. FKA twigs is still an Apple marketing darling.
All existing Connect content will continue to appear in searches until May 24 of next year, according to Apple. The company is meanwhile pulling Connect posts from artist profiles and the "For You" tab.
When Apple Music launched in June 2015, Connect was initially pushed as hard as any other aspect of the service, and many musicians were quick to hop on. Interest rapidly faded both from artists and the public, however, in some cases leaving launch content as the only Connect material on profiles.
In its letter to artists, first reported by 9to5Mac, Apple spins the pending shutdown as "streamlining music discovery."
"This means you'll no longer be able to post to Connect as of December 13, 2018, but all previously uploaded content will still be searchable until May 24, 2019," the letter reads.
Connect is Apple's second failed attempt at music-based social media. In 2010 the company launched Ping, which like Connect let people follow their favorite artists. People were also able to find out what music and concerts their friends were interested in, and share their thoughts online.
That service was hampered from the start though, as artists and the public alike had to approve each follower, and Facebook integration fell through shortly before launch. Worse yet, the service was initially bombarded by spam and fake celebrity accounts.
Ping did eventually pick up Twitter integration, but low usage ultimately led to Apple killing the product in September 2012.
An earlier incarnation of Connect. FKA twigs is still an Apple marketing darling.All existing Connect content will continue to appear in searches until May 24 of next year, according to Apple. The company is meanwhile pulling Connect posts from artist profiles and the "For You" tab.
When Apple Music launched in June 2015, Connect was initially pushed as hard as any other aspect of the service, and many musicians were quick to hop on. Interest rapidly faded both from artists and the public, however, in some cases leaving launch content as the only Connect material on profiles.
In its letter to artists, first reported by 9to5Mac, Apple spins the pending shutdown as "streamlining music discovery."
"This means you'll no longer be able to post to Connect as of December 13, 2018, but all previously uploaded content will still be searchable until May 24, 2019," the letter reads.
Connect is Apple's second failed attempt at music-based social media. In 2010 the company launched Ping, which like Connect let people follow their favorite artists. People were also able to find out what music and concerts their friends were interested in, and share their thoughts online.
That service was hampered from the start though, as artists and the public alike had to approve each follower, and Facebook integration fell through shortly before launch. Worse yet, the service was initially bombarded by spam and fake celebrity accounts.
Ping did eventually pick up Twitter integration, but low usage ultimately led to Apple killing the product in September 2012.
Comments
Cheers to each and every platform gone.
Good riddance!
As for apple being bad at social media, I think they’re actually pretty good at it, just in different ways. Messages is my #1 social media platform by an outrageous margin. Almost all my friends are on iPhone and we have several “clubs” and groups between us. It’s an extremely powerful social media tool especially now with all the apps and plugins for it.
And here we we all are talking about apple products.
Apple will never really succeed at “social” in the sense of FB or Twitter because it will never allow a bad experience, which you can get routinely from those two (though their usefulness seems to outweigh the unpleasantness, at least for now). The company has (wisely) now focused on Messages and (Group) FaceTime as a user-controlled positive social bubble experience, and that is working fabulously. To that end, Apple should (IMO) buy Slack, if they can.
I’m no fan of twitter but it’s one of the two “it places” right now. I hate Facebook, but, like many who do, I’m still using it. Like Twitter, it is where most people already are. There’s no room in this market for a social service for every damned company (Google learned this).
(There’s also no room in the moving picture market for every damned studio to have its own streaming subscription service).
Apple need to spend more time and money paying their developers to fix bugs in iOS. I’m still utterly disgusted at the Safari text edit box bugs that keep getting worse every major revision. Make the existing products better and stop trying to be a player in every damned market. But that’s not enough for Wall Street. I HATE Wall Street.
Connect had potential. Rather than making it one-sided, Apple could have used it's clout to make it more interactive.
Have a chat session with an artist whose album is about to be released.
Stream exclusive live songs like a Periscope broadcast.
Allow fans to leave questions for artists who would answer them.
So much potential.
I don't know 100% why that is, but, part of it is that I only care to follow a few artists, and they don't post all that often, so there was no reason to check every day. And no notification of new content. And the enthusiasm to check would just drain away until I wasn't looking at it at all. I imagine my experience was common, if others even tried as hard as I did to find it useful.
News that it's going away is not the least bit surprising.