OpenSocial: Yahoo joins hands with Google

Yahoo is the latest to join Google’s OpenSocial software, which as the online search giant claims, is aimed at allowing developers to create applications for social-networking sites. News Corp.’s MySpace had earlier agreed to back Google in the endeavor. The platform was launched last November.

“OpenSocial has been a community-driven specification from the beginning,” said Joe Krauss, Director of Product Management with Google. “The formation of this foundation will ensure that it remains so in perpetuity. Developers and websites should feel secure that OpenSocial will be forever free and open,” he added.

Given the eminent competition between arch rivals Yahoo and Google, the liaison comes as a surprise. But all of the three companies said they intend to ensure neutrality and longevity for OpenSocial and as founding members to offer developers the potential to connect with over 500 million people worldwide.

"Yahoo believes in community-driven industry specifications and expects OpenSocial to fuel innovation and make the web more relevant and more enjoyable to millions of users," said Wade Chambers, vice president of platforms at Yahoo. "Our support builds on similar efforts with the OpenID community and will expand the opportunity for developers and publishers to benefit from an open and increasingly social web."

MySpace was pleased at Yahoo’s unification and called it an important addition, stating that this coalition will help present developers with the necessary tools to make the Internet faster and “foster more innovation and creativity.” The organization will be created within the next three months.

Google was quick to welcome Yahoo into the OpenSocial group, which now comprises of LinkedIn, MySpace, Friendster and Salesforce.com.

Google said it is looking forward to Yahoo users joining the hundreds of millions of people who will soon be offered OpenSocial applications. "This addition means even more distribution for developers, encourages participation by even more websites and, most importantly, results in more features for users all across the web," said Google product manager Dan Peterson.