Myspace to launch developer platform February 5th
Myspace has just announced that it will launch a developer platform on February 5th. The platform was originally mentioned in October of ‘07 at the Web 2.0 Summit.
According to Myspace co-founder Chris DeWolfe, it was supposed to be available in “a couple of months”. This news was accompanied by the announcement that Amit Kapur would take on the role of Chief Operating Officer for Myspace, and would oversee the developer platform project.
Full details are sketchy at this point, but Myspace plans to offer its “robust and mature monetization platform” to help developers make money for their efforts. Kapur says that the user experience will be the top priority. Though Myspace is no stranger to hijacking and spam, Kapur claims that the social network will avoid issues that have “plaqued other players in the space”.
Myspace has previously allowed third-party developers to offer their interactive applications (called “widgets”) by informally allowing them one-by-one. Some of those turned in to over night success stories. Photobucket’s widget actually became so popular that the operation was bought out by Myspace parent company News Corp.
Facebook, the main competitor of Myspace, released their own developer platform in May of ‘07. There have been over 14,000 applications and widgets developed against the Facebook APIs, which no doubt played a role in putting Facebook in the number two slot behind Myspace.
Though this launch will immediately allow developers to develop and test widgets, it has not yet been announced when those applications will be able to be integrated into the Myspace community.
Developers can pre-register at http://developer.myspace.com.
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