Apple Ping

Apple Ping was introduced on 1 September 2010 by Steve Jobs, who described it as “Facebook and Twitter meet iTunes” — a social network woven into the iTunes interface, permitting users to follow artists, share purchases, and declare their musical affinities to the world. It launched in eighteen countries and attracted one million users within its first forty-eight hours, figures that suggested a future more substantial than the one it received. It had, however, launched without Facebook integration — negotiations with Mark Zuckerberg having collapsed — and spam overran its concert recommendation features almost immediately. The foundation was not sound.

Apple discontinued Ping on 30 September 2012, two years and twenty-nine days after its debut, with no ceremony and little explanation. It had never found a reason to exist that iTunes alone could not provide, and the streaming era that would shortly arrive rendered its premises obsolete before they could be corrected. It was thirty years old in no sense whatsoever. It was two. It did not receive an obituary from its creator.