Once upon a time there was a social networking site called MySpace. Everyone was on it. Everyone loved it. It was the place to be. Then came the pedophiles. Then came the spam. Then came News Corp. Then came Facebook.
Oh, who are we kidding? It’s still the largest social networking site in the world. It’s just lost a bit of its shininess since Facebook took the spotlight. Well, MySpace isn’t fooling around and has hooked up with Google as a premiere supporter of Google’s recently announced OpenSocial development platform. OpenSocial hopes to bring some standards to social network development with its open API.
MySpace CEO Chris Wolfe commented on the partnership saying, “Our partnership with Google allows developers to gain massive distribution without unnecessary specialized development for every platform. This is about helping the start-up spend more time building a great product rather than rebuilding it for every social network. We’re pleased to collaborate with Google to establish a landmark standard for social applications.”
Flixster CEO Joe Greenstein chimed in, “An as application developer, we’re excited to see MySpace adopting the OpenSocial standard for social application development. Application developers have been working with MySpace for a long time–this takes what we can do together to a whole new level. The sheer scale of MySpace makes this extremely exciting for us.”
Already hooked up with Google’s OpenSource are Engage.com, Friendster, hi5, Hyves, imeem, LinkedIn, Ning, Oracle, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, and XING.
Writing on Google OpenSocial blog, group product managers Amar Gandhi and Peter Chane state, “Perhaps most interestingly, we will see social capabilities move into new contexts. OpenSocial will also work in non-traditional social contexts, such as on Salesforce.com and Oracle. With a common set of APIs, it will be even easier to extend social functionality. Beyond the many fun and entertaining social applications we already have seen, we think we’ll see a number of social applications emerge in business contexts.”
Brands, now is your chance to create branded widgets which, with the help of OpenSocial, can easily tap into the audiences of many (and soon likely all) social networking sites. No more standalone Facebook groups. No more cheesily branded MySpace pages. Just simple, easy-to-use, purposeful widgets with your name on them floating across the social web.
Forget the conversation, Join the party.
