Los Angeles – Having failed
to reach an agreement with Apple over access, Facebook blocked a link to
Apple’s (NASD: AAPL) new Ping music-focused social network that would let users
automatically add Facebook friends to their Ping contacts, sources told All Things D. As TechCrunch and
others reported, Facebook Connect was indeed connected with Ping for a brief
while before and even after the service was officially launched yesterday.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs told All Things D that Facebook was seeking "onerous
terms" from Apple in exchange for the ability of iTunes’ 160 million users
firing up Ping for the first time to add their friends from Facebook.
So,
without a formal agreement, Facebook blocked Ping, prompting Apple to remove
the feature — which would only have added a user’s Facebook friends to Ping,
and not share any other Facebook data on the new Apple social network.
Sources
tell All Things D the companies are still in discussions to resolve any issues
and restore the Facebook Connect feature in Ping.
Related Links:
http://tinyurl.com/239dq9o
(All Things D)
http://tinyurl.com/2de653b
(TechCrunch)
http://tinyurl.com/25fq68o
(Cult of Mac)
http://tinyurl.com/27xgy3p
(DMW previous coverage)
I have to admit as a luddite I do not see the point of Facebook to follow the lives of boring individuals in nauseating detail. Having said that I cannot see the point of Ping either.. So to reiterate who cares…
Why not just copy/paste the link from your iTunes Ping Profile and send it out to your friends as a Facebook Update?