Mark Zuckerberg talks Apple, Facebook integration during Web 2.0 Summit

On the second day of the Web 2.0 Summit, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made some comments on his company’s dealings with Apple over Ping.

Zuckerberg also had an explanation for why the company had not partnered with Apple to let it pull in social data for Ping. He says that Facebook has had to invest tens of millions of dollars into infrastructure to enable games from large developers like Zynga, which is why Facebook and Zynga agreed to a formal alliance. Zuckerberg says that if the company is going to make an investment like this, “we want to have an understanding that you won’t just import our data — and that you try to contribute back. We’re working through that.”

Now that we somewhat understand the basics for why Facebook is still blocking ping maybe they and Apple can come to terms and work out some sort of deal to incorporate Facebook into Ping to help make it more useable.

Recently Twitter allowed Apple to intergrate their services into Ping so it would be extremely useful and welcome for Facebook to follow suit but we will have to continue to wait through the Apple and Facebook negotiations.

Do you think Ping needs Facebook to thrive as a social network or do you think Twitter is enough for users to be more interested in utilizing the Ping services?

[ TechCrunch ]

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Sneak peek: New-style Facebook messages on iPhone

Facebook’s new-style messages service — an abstraction of email, IM, and SMS — is already working in the latest version of Facebook for iPhone… once you’ve had the feature rolled out to your account. Facebook isn’t the first to try and redefine the ways we communicate online. Google has done it twice already, once successfully with the eccentric but reserved Gmail and again unsuccessfully with the wikichat that was Wave. Facebook is a social network however — the social network — so their take is decidedly different and whether or not it catches on remains to be seen.

Setup is simple on the web. You get an invitation, you accept, then you get your @facebook email address, verify your SMS number (if you want), and login to chat (also if you want). After that you’re hit with the new interface. Once that’s setup, the next time you launch Facebook on iPhone you’re alerted that new-style messages are available (same way Places alerted you when it arrived) and you’re good to go.

We’ll be testing it out over the next week or so but in the meantime check out the screenshots after the break and if you have any questions or comments, you know where to leave them!

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Facebook for iPhone adds account and privacy settings, fixed photo upload bug

Facebook has once again updated their iPhone and iPod touch app, this time adding access to account and privacy settings and fixing a photo upload bug. The new version (3.3.2 for those keeping track at home) lets you access the settings via the Account button at the top left of the home screen, but then simply loads the Facebook.com web page. It’s nowhere as good a user experience as if they added those settings to the app proper, but it does mean Facebook won’t have to update the app whenever they update those pages (it also means you can use it as a way to move between the app interface and the website without having to jump to Safari).

The photo upload bug fix is nice to see. The “no iPad version” bug persists, however.

If you’ve tried out the settings, and if photo uploads are finally working for you the way they should, let us know!

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New Facebook Messages isn’t an email killer, but will you use it?

Facebook held a press conference earlier today to announce their new messaging system. Many believed this would be an email killer to compete with the likes of Gmail and Yahoo! Instead, Facebook is launching a revamped messaging system that unifies all communication through email, IM or SMS into an aggregated messaging stream. “It’s not e-mail” said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg during the press event this morning.

The new messaging system is composed of three parts: seamless messaging, cross-platform conversation history and the social inbox. The latter is an inbox for filtering the messages you want, organized by the people you care about. It’s designed to highlight conversations with your real friends and be spam free.

Facebook will also be assigning individual email addresses under the facebook.com email domain which correlates to the Facebook username in question. The new messaging system will be rolling out to select users over the next couple of months.

What we’re curious about is if the update to Facebook Mobile for iPhone late last night had anything to do with the announcement this morning, or will we be getting yet another update shortly to enable it? And most importantly, will you be using it?

[Facebook via Mashable]

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