MySpace May Integrate Facebook Connect as Early as Next Year

It shouldn't really surprise anyone at this point, but there are now rumors that MySpace will be rolling out Facebook Connect Integration sometime in the first part of 2010. Yes, the arch-enemies of just a couple of years ago are now making “friend requests.” But 2009 is not 2007, Facebook has clearly won the social-networking wars and MySpace has shifted strategy and is now looking to become an entertainment hub. And what any media outlet needs most is audience, and Facebook, with 350 million users, can certainly deliver on that.

Inside Facebook cites industry sources and claims that Facebook Connect will become an integral part of the site sometime next year and Facebook features will be leveraged in various sections of the social network. It is expected that Facebook's social graph will become just as important as MySpace's own and both will be available to users.

For a start, Facebook share buttons should be rolled out on MySpace Music and other content-focused areas. Facebook users should also be able to log in using their credentials to access some of the features on MySpace. What it means for MySpace users who may or may not be Facebook users as well is less clear, but perhaps a merger of the two accounts or at least the possibility to share the friends list is not completely unfeasible at some point not too far in the future.

Yahoo has just announced a massive Facebook rollout across most of its properties and adding MySpace to the list of partners for Facebook Connect would be a major victory for the social network. Facebook may have won the social-networking war, but another battle is looming, the battle for online identity, which is set to be a rather fierce competition in the coming years.

Just two major opponents are shaping up in this space, Facebook and Google, both of which are increasing their efforts to be the world's online identity provider. For the time being Facebook is ahead, at least in mind share, and scoring two major partners like Yahoo and MySpace can only help, but, even though Google hasn't had too much luck in the social space, don't discount the search giant just yet.