13 March 2008
MySpace Platform Goes Live
Today MySpace announced it was releasing its initial Apps directory and allowing all users to install apps on http://apps.myspace.com on their own profiles. Messaging is not yet enabled, nor is it enabled on any OpenSocial site, sandbox or not. Based on my development in OpenSocial it will be interesting to see if these apps can take off as quickly as the Facebook platform. Thus far, with no messaging platform the only way to virally spread an app is through a) the directory, and b) the Activities stream. It will be interesting with the large userbase that MySpace has to see if this is all that is needed.
As part of this launch, MySpace has also upgraded to the latest version of OpenSocial, 0.7, putting them at par with Orkut, Hi5, and others. Therefore it is now possible to easily migrate your apps from Orkut and others over to MySpace. It was anticipated that MySpace was going to launch with only 0.6, which was rather buggy and lacked in features. 0.7, while not full of features and still a little buggy, puts them at level playing field with the other OpenSocial partners.
The other significant news of this launch is that, with Orkut delaying their launch, this puts MySpace at “first-to-market” status rather than Orkut, and, in my opinion leaves Orkut out in the cold for a chance at gaining the U.S. market share that Orkut currently lacks. It’s a shame, that with Google’s, “release early, release often” mentality, that they couldn’t get that product out, despite the bugs. MySpace has launched, full of bugs, and I bet they do way better. Then again, it is Google…
[…] be displayed inside Facebook I’ve been listening to the social networking buzz. And now, as MySpace launches social applications, I’m seeing that the next step is to jump in and be an active part of the social networking […]