Developers invited to the MySpace party

05-02-2008

by Stephen Errity

MySpace has unveiled the details of its new initiative to get software developers working on widgets and apps for its many millions of users.

The News Corporation-owned site will be holding a party in its San Francisco offices on Tuesday night for 250 developers to mark the launch of the MySpace Developer Platform. The move mirrors the decision of MySpace's chief rival Facebook to 'open up' last May, resulting in countless profile add-ons appearing in the intervening months, offering games, quizzes and other entertainment to users.

MySpace's developer platform makes use of Google's 'OpenSocial' suite of application program interfaces (APIs) to allow programmers work on their creations. Only those applications approved by MySpace staff will be made available for users to download, with the first batch set to go live a month from now, giving budding programmers plenty of time to get cracking on the next Scrabulous. It is expected that many developers of Facebook applications will be quick to 'port' their creations over to MySpace.

In the initial stages, every application will go through a safety review process to ensure that users are not being exposed to viruses that could disrupt their system. A combination of human evaluation and automated test will be used to weed out potentially damaging or disruptive code. Once the platform goes live, MySpace says it will deploy a new security tool developed by Google to safeguard against malicious applications called Caja, which has been described as a 'JavaScript sanitizer'.

Age, hometown, photo albums and video clips posted on MySpace profiles will be among the data available for incorporation into widgets, however the company said developers would have access only to data already publicly visible, and users have the option to keep such information from developers by restricting profile access to friends only.

Developers of successful applications also stand to gain financially. Each approved application will have a 'homepage' where developers can keep users informed of updates, improvements and tips, with revenue from ads placed on such pages going to the developer. They will also be able to interact with other developers through blogs and discussion forums and plans are underway to allow them purchase targeted advertising to promote their applications.