MySpace launches test version of its Developer Platform

MySpace on Tuesday has opened its door for public, calling on thousands of technology companies and programmers to contribute features to its service. News Corp.'s most widely-known lifestyle portal MySpace is expected to launch Tuesday its highly anticipated new open-source platform, called MySpace Developer Platform.

The developer platform will allow the outside developers to build the applications for the Facebook Web site, and will give the chance to generate revenue from those services by showing ads or selling goods and services within special pages in the site.

MySpace is launching its platform with a one-month application development window, meaning the developers will have a month to test and build their application before the applications are released to the site's members. In other words, the developers will be able to produce applications on a limited number of profiles before the site goes live to the entire community in early March.

"Developers will be able to build applications, but they'll be in the sandbox environment where consumers won't be able to see them," said Kyle Brinkman, vice president and general manager of general manager of MySpace's developer platform. "It's intended to be a completely open field. Any developer can sign up for and start building applications."

Once the platform goes live to members, MySpace will add an applications listing to its site, application profiles and other features.

MySpace is starting with the developer platform as test version so that developers can learn about the platform, test its features and functionality and actually build real applications that run on live MySpace profiles, Brinkman said.

By launching the developer Web site, MySpace gets closer to give tough competition to its arch- rival, Facebook, which unveiled its platform to external developers in May.

In a keynote at the company’s f8 event in San Francisco on May 24, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook Platform, inviting all developers to build the next-generation of applications with deep integration into Facebook, distribution across its “social graph” and an opportunity to build new businesses.

Facebook Platform, which debuted with 85 new features designed by other companies such as Amazon, Microsoft and The Washington Post at Facebook's invitation, was touted at the time of launch as an unusual step taken by the company as an ambitious strategy for expansion. More than 14,000 applications have so far been created for the site.

In November, MySpace agreed to join a new Google-led alliance, called OpenSocial, giving boost to the Internet search giant’s efforts to take on social-networking website Facebook Inc.
Google’s OpenSocial is intended to give developers one set of standards, known as application program interfaces (APIs), to create Web-based software applications that will run on different competing social networks.

The OpenSocial consortium, which is promoting a common set of standards for software developers to write programs for social networks, includes many other social networks, including Google's orkut, Hi5, Friendster, iLike, LinkedIn, Ning, Plaxo, Slide as well as the blogging network SixApart and the software makers Oracle and Salesforce.com.

Google asserts its new OpenSocial APIs will become a standard set of application programming interfaces for building social applications that will work across social networking and other Web sites. If all goes well according to Google’s wishes, the OpenSocial alliance could put pressure on Facebook to drop its own standard and join the consortium.