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Former Facebook Exec Lands CEO Job At Playlist

Former Facebook COO Owen Van Natta has resurfaced as the CEO of music discovery site Playlist, Kara Swisher at All Things Digital reports. It had been widely suggested that Van Natta might take the vacant position as head of MySpace Music, but Van Natta ultimately opted for the smaller music discovery site.

The former Facebook executive's arrival was coupled with the announcement that former AOL exec Bob Pittman will be joining the company's board, with his company, Pilot Investment Group, investing an undisclosed amount of money in the music startup. Swisher says the new funding is in the $18-$20 million range.

Swisher calls Van Natta's choice "interesting" given the talks he had with the likes of Microsoft, MySpace, and several startups over possible positions. That said, upon leaving Facebook, Van Natta expressed his desire to become CEO of a company rather than taking another executive job at a large company, which makes his move to a startup less surprising. Project Playlist has recently become one of the larger music communities on the Web, claiming more than 38 million music fans per month who share playlists and embeddable widgets via its Web site. The site has tens of millions of daily page views, according to surveys. Swisher says the site offers users "a giant linking service for music" (and sometimes illegal music), which she says is not dissimilar to the way Google links to all information.

Read the whole story at D: All Things Digital »

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