Zac Hall, 9to5Mac:

Apple Music Connect appears to slowly be going the way of iTunes Ping. 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. Connect content will still be viewable through search results on Apple Music, but Apple is removing artist-submitted Connect posts from search in May

Building a social network of any kind is hard. Even if you get the design right, which is hard enough, there’s the difficulty of getting people to embrace that design, to build a critical mass of users.

Some might say that social is not in Apple’s DNA. But there is an exception. Messages. As much as I use Twitter, et al, I use Messages even more.

Want to build an instant chat room to discuss an idea for an app? Or an upcoming group trip? Or prep for a big presentation or test? Just start a message thread with everyone involved. Add people as needed, even mute the thread so you won’t be interrupted by replies to the group (you’ll still see the badge showing how many new replies since you last checked in).

Messages is not perfect, but it does the job well enough, and has achieved critical mass. I’ve always wondered what the Messages team could do if they were given the mandate to weave Apple Music intimately throughout the Messages client. Make it easy, and fun, to share music with others, make it easy to listen along with your friends, without the cumbersome overhead of copying and pasting links.

Ask the guy who built this. I think he’s got plenty of great ideas.