Apple fails again at its most recent social media platform initiative

Apple has failed once again to gain any traction with a social media platform. This time around it is the artist Connect feature that launched with much fanfare alongside Apple Music, its big push into music streaming. It joins the quickly forgotten Ping efforts from 2010, which was similar intended to help fans and artists better engage with each other.

Connect arrived with the launch of Apple Music back in 2015 and was feted as being an integral part of the service as a way artists could help to boost their profile and find new fans. Although initially well-utilized by artists, not many music fans engaged with the posts with comments or likes. It didn't take long for interest from artists to quickly drop off with some artists just making one or two initial posts before failing to post anything again. A major redesign of the Apple Music app (which followed complaints about its horrible initial app UI) saw the service pushed even further to the periphery.

Artists received notification of the termination of Connect via email. Apple spun the news as "streamlining music discovery by removing Connect posts from Artist Pages and For You."  In its place, Apple has added a new Artist Radio channel. Artists won't be able to post to Connect from December 13, but previously posted content will remain searchable until 24 May. Apple hasn't made many forays into social media and it doesn't seem likely that we will see another platform from the company.

Source(s)