MySpace throws weight behind OpenSocial

Google has lured MySpace to its OpenSocial development platform, raising its challenge to Facebook.

“OpenSocial is going to become the de facto standard (for developers) instantly out of the gates. It is going to have a reach of 200 million users, which is way bigger than anything else out there,” says Chris DeWolfe, chief executive of MySpace.

“The web has moved to its next stage,” adds Google CEO Eric Schmidt. “We always knew that the web would be significantly social. We also always knew that it would be standard, open, and extensive, which is what this combination and the other activities today are showing.”

Google and MySpace say they had been working together on the project for more than a year. MySpace has some 110 million users worldwide and already relies on Google to provide search functions for its site.

Google unveiled OpenSocial earlier this week and disclosed that social networks such as LinkedIn and Friendster had already joined as well as some of the biggest independent developers on Facebook, including Slide and iLike.

“There’s a lot of innovation that will be spurred simply by creating a standard way for developers to run social applications in more places,” Google says in a statement.

“With the input and iteration of the community, we hope OpenSocial will become a standard set of technologies for making the web social.”

Google says it has also reached out to Facebook, and hundreds of other sites, about joining its OpenSocial platform. Facebook representatives had no immediate comment.

Google lost out to rival Microsoft last week, when the software maker took a minority stake in privately held Facebook and shored up its position as the site’s advertising delivery partner.