Ping! Apple Music Connect to shut down in 2019

“Apple Music Connect appears to slowly be going the way of iTunes Ping,” Zac Hall reports for 9to5Mac.
” Apple has started notifying Apple Music artists that it is removing the ability for artists to post content to Apple Music Connect, and previously posted Apple Music Connect content is being removed from the For You section and Artist Pages in Apple Music,” Hall reports. “Connect content will still be viewable through search results on Apple Music, but Apple is removing artist-submitted Connect posts from search in May.”
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. – Apple note to artists
“It certainly sounds like Connect as a platform will all but be abandoned by May 2019,” Hall reports. “Apple Music has done well with other social features that iTunes Ping sort of tried to tackle years earlier. For example, Apple Music users can follow each other and share play activity as a way to recommend music on the platform. Apple also has an automated playlist that recommends music weekly based on what friends are listening to.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Shocking. We’d forgotten Connect was even still live.