This Week's Sponsor
Save 20% on the award-winning Audio Hijack with coupon code 6C20AH!By Jason Snell for Macworld
How Apple could make its next social experiment a successful one
Let’s just say it: Apple’s history with building social networks is terrible. It tried with Ping (and again with Apple Music Connect) and the conventional wisdom is that the company just doesn’t get it when it comes to building social networks. Which is funny, because it’s been great at building new platforms for other people to build social networks.
So when Bloomberg reported recently that Apple’s working on several different social-networking initiatives that could appear in the next year, the world reacted exactly as you might expect: With a gigantic, globe-spanning eyeroll.
Fair enough. Deserved, even. While I don’t think Apple is ever going to launch the next hot social-media app, there are plenty of things Apple could do to make itself a more relevant presence in the social-media world. And most of it has to do with playing everywhere that the hot social-media apps aren’t. Or to put it another way, Apple should be focusing on social networking for the rest of us.