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It looks like Apple has finally picked up one of the last remaining pieces of internet property linked to one of its key service brands: the iPhone and Mac giant has quietly taken over ownership of iCloud.net<\/a>, TechCrunch has learned. Subsequent to that, the small-time Asian social network that existed at the\u00a0site has informed its users that it will be shutting down<\/a>\u00a0by the end of this month.<\/p>\n Contacted for this article, Apple declined to comment.<\/p>\n The icloud.net domain \u2014 which is now controlled by Apple<\/a> \u2014 was one of the last major iCloud-based web addresses that was not owned by the company. (Perhaps the<\/em> last major one? not quite, there is also iCloud.co.uk<\/a>, owned by Dennis Publishing.)<\/p>\n In 2011, just before officially unveiling its own iCloud storage<\/a> service (but after there had been leaks about its imminent arrival), Apple\u00a0acquired iCloud.com from Swedish software company Xcerion<\/a>, which had launched its own cloud-based service under that name in 2007. It was later\u00a0confirmed in Xcerion\u2019s accounts<\/a> that Apple paid about 47 million Kroner ($5.2 million) for the domain.<\/p>\n Four years later<\/a>, Xcerion quietly transferred the rest of its iCloud-related name holdings, covering some 170 domains, to Apple as well. Examples include iCloud.us<\/a>, iCloud.eu<\/a> and iCloud.tv<\/a>, and ironically, I found the full list on an iCloud.net blog post<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 which means that you have until the end of this month to look at it if you\u2019re curious.<\/p>\n The soon-to-be-gone iCloud social network is\u00a0a cross between a pared-down blogging platform and pared-down Facebook.<\/p>\n Started in 2011, it\u2019s not clear how many users iCloud.net ever had (we\u2019ve tried to ask). \u201ciCloud social network is a multi-purpose network platform,\u201d the site noted on its homepage, with some\u00a0typos, when it was still taking sign-ups:<\/p>\n \u201cYou can share your activites, pictures, music, videos, movies, write your daily blogs, and join in your favorite groups, etc..By joining iCloud.NET, you will get the latest news feeds from your friends, interact with friends and get the fun of life is our greatest expectations.\u201d<\/p>\n It looks like Tong Lei, the developer behind the network, will keep other existing portals operating. They include a Bitcoin site<\/a> and a search engine<\/a>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s interesting to see\u00a0that iCloud.net happened to be attached to a social network \u2014 albeit a very small and mostly unused one, from\u00a0the looks of it \u2014 because Apple has been rumored<\/a>, according to Bloomberg, to be planning to launch one or more social products sometime this year.<\/p>\n One possibility that Apple is\u00a0working on, according to the report from August 2016, is a photo app akin to Instagram or Snapchat; another would be taking\u00a0features that borrow from these two apps but\u00a0incorporating them straight into Apple\u2019s native photo app; a third would be to build more social features and social integrations into other existing Apple services, such as communications services that would unify all of your interactions, photos and other touchpoints\u00a0with people into one place.<\/p>\n To be perfectly clear: it\u2019s not a sure bet at all that any of these social efforts \u2014 if they ever make it out into the market \u2014 would use iCloud branding.<\/p>\n But should Apple choose to expand into more social or photo or information storage services under any name, the proximity with a social network called iCloud.net might be\u00a0too close for comfort.<\/p>\n (Interesting side reading: this essay from 2014<\/a> that argues that iCloud is anti-social in its DNA.)<\/p>\n More generally, Apple has made no secret of how it is increasingly looking to\u00a0its services business for revenue growth.<\/p>\n