Ping was introduced September 1, 2010 with a million+ users to start with, which isn’t bad for a startup of a media network. Unfortunately from there though, instead of increasing it’s users, it decreased. Apple never released numbers for Ping and they never talked about it since they really didn’t want people to see what a failure it was. Ping was supposed to be a social media network in which users could share and discover music with their friends, discover new music similar to the music they listen to, and communicate with artists. It did work that way to a certain extent, however a lack of advertising, lack of artists communicating with fans on it, and a lack of support from Apple itself led to Ping’s downfall. Apple announced last week that Ping will be discontinued next month with the release of Apple’s next version of iTunes. For me, it’s a good thing. I much rather use Facebook or Twitter integration with iTunes then keep seeing that annoying banner on the right side of iTunes advertising Ping. I never used it and I am not surprised. It was one of the very few Apple failures in the past decade. This was a Microsoft stunt. Just as Microsoft is too late to everything, Apple was too late to the social media market. It’s the simple too late approach. Of course, it wasn’t the only flaw of Ping, but it was the biggest one. Ping was too late to capture any market share. Hopefully, Apple won’t try it again and I am glad to finally see that banner in iTunes gone, because that’s all it was to me, a banner. Nothing more. I am sorry if you liked Ping but if you do, you are one of few and far in between. I must admit it was a good attempt but it wasn’t insanely great. And that’s what Apple needs their products to be for them to succeed. Ping just wasn’t it. RIP Ping September 2010-September 2012.

Thanks for reading,

Joe