iTunes Ping, Apple's music-based social network, is shutting down at the end of the month. The service was hurt by its lack of Facebook integration from the get-go and never gained much traction.
Launched in 2010, Ping is a music-oriented take on services like Facebook and Twitter that’s built directly into iTunes. The social network, however, never attracted much attention from iTunes users, which is why Apple has decided to shut it down later this month.
So what’s next for Apple’s social networking ambitions? From the company itself, very little. Instead of creating its own social network (which it will surely attempt again at some point) Apple plans to more tightly integrate its devices and operating systems with Twitter and Facebook.
“Apple doesn’t have to own a social network, but does Apple have to be social? Yes,”Cook said earlier this year,
