MySpace likely to open up a la Facebook
|
Written By Emily Koh | June 29, 2007 | Share This
|
|
Taking a cue from rival Facebook, MySpace will likely release an API to let third-party developers create applications that “plug” into the giant social network, according to co-founder Chris DeWolfe. The Financial Times reports:
“The [Facebook] platform is interesting,” Mr. DeWolfe said in an interview with the Financial Times. He argued MySpace’s current technology approach gave its users many of the same benefits but said: “We’ll probably offer users the choice of both.”
The Financial Times also points out that although Facebook has less than half as many users as MySpace in the U.S., its new platform strategy has won favor over from internet companies trying to reach the 27 million or so registered users — the social network currently boasts over 1,000 applications and services, allowing users to do things ranging from posting audio on their profiles, creating photoslideshows, and share personal movie ratings.
Steve O’Hear at ZDNet remarks that this shows the next step of social networks’ progression:
What’s most interesting about such a response is that we are now moving into an era where the top networks are using their perceived “openness” as a way of competing — and in MySpace’s case, staying on top. But rather than focusing on opening up as the end game, it’s the attraction of becoming a platform rather than a single application which is the real jewel in the crown.
All this issue of openness has been creating lots of chatter, and third party developers are certainly going to benefit now that there’s a much clearer business model emerging from the open platform system utilizing widgets — it drives up traffic and page views to sites, which is good news to advertisers. However, paidContent.org points out that MySpace has already been open to third party developers but doesn’t allow monetization without a separate agreement, so how MySpace plans to approach this remains to be seen.
Topics: Social Media |