MySpace and Google join forces

Just two days after Google publicly announced its new social networking application platform, MySpace has decided to join the group that already consists of some big names such as Six Apart (who are behind LiveJournal), Orkut, Hi5 and Friendster. MySpace and Google may just have a specific target in mind - Facebook.

Facebook currently employs a great application platform that allows users to quickly and easily see what applications their friends are using and then install that software themselves. Google’s platform intends to employ a very similar strategy, but they have their sights set on the largest audience they can by teaming up with every social networking site within their grasp.

Chris DeWolfe, MySpace CEO, has confirmed the alliance and has some interesting things to say. "If you're an application developer, you can write your widget to this standard and, overnight, get distribution to 200 million people," he said. "You don't want to have to rebuild it for 10 different sites. What we did was create the de-facto standard for social networking."

However, he denies that Facebook is their main target. "It just makes sense that a small application developer should only have to develop once, as opposed to creating it over and over, for several different platforms," says DeWolfe. "This was a common belief we had with Google. This will just make the Internet bigger. It has nothing to do with Facebook."

What’s undeniable is the power that this new platform will hold. MySpace alone has over 100 million users, which is more than double Facebook’s user base. With the wide variety of both hosts and developers Google has banded together around OpenSocial, it’s set to quickly follow in the footsteps of nearly every other Google platform and achieve instant success. This means that users, basement coders, and large developers alike will be able to benefit from this new team of sites.

All of this comes just one week after Microsoft made the decision to invest in Facebook. Likely coincidence, or was Google already prepared to take on both Facebook and Microsoft? Discuss your thoughts over in the forums.