Kara Swisher

Recent Posts by Kara Swisher

Video: Even Apple Product Marketing Head Schiller Touts Facebook Connection, Which Has Now Disappeared on Ping

The plot thickens!

While two official Apple pages tout an ability to use Facebook to find friends on Ping–its new social music offering in ITunes–which would be very useful, the feature is now not available on the service.

CEO Steve Jobs, in fact, told me at the Apple (AAPL) event where Ping–and more–was unveiled yesterday that the lack of Facebook connection was due to unspecified “onerous terms” that the social networking giant had sought and Apple declined.

Which is why it is odd that Apple’s SVP of worldwide product marketing Phil Schiller said in the interview below, which I also did at the confab minutes apart, that “you can use your Facebook contacts to find friends who are also on Ping and hook up to them.”

So what happened? A last-minute yanking of Facebook funtionality, it appears, after it was launched.

BoomTown has inquiries into all the parties, but until then, here is my video interview of Schiller talking about Ping’s Facebook love, before it was spurned in a Silicon Valley mystery and more, from yesterday:

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There was a worry before I started this that I was going to burn every bridge I had. But I realize now that there are some bridges that are worth burning.

— Valleywag editor Sam Biddle