Edible Apple

It’s well known at this point that Apple attempted to strike a deal with Facebook to integrate user data with Ping. After a reported 18 months of negotiations, the two sides were unable to seal the deal because the terms demanded by Facebook were too onerous for Apple to take on, according to Steve Jobs.

Today, at day two of the Web 2.0 Summit, John Batelle and Tim O’Reilly got right down to it and asked the Facebook CEO point blank why Facebook and Apple were unable to reach a deal for Ping/Facebook integration.

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.”

So Facebook wants a little somethin somethinin return, which is somewhat ironic given that Facebook doesn’t hold itself to the same standards when it comes to Google and FB importing Gmail contact info.

via TechCrunch