14 DAY TRIAL // Once upon a time there was a big social network reigning over its smaller siblings from far up in the sky, where its success propelled it. But then came its worst nightmare, a new rival and because it too was based on people's profiles and friends, heir to its throne. That spooked the fearless (to that moment) leader and so it pulled everybody together at a round table and suggested that what was one's strength should be the strength of all and pitched similar lines into everybody's ear.
That's how OpenSocial was created, and in the distribution we have MySpace as the ruler, Facebook as the heir and the siblings are all the rest, including Google's orkut, hi5, bebo and the list could continue. The one thing which they all thought that, if exploited properly, could be their future is the opening of their platforms to the software developers, so that one application could fit them all just the same.
Things got a little out of hand when this first exploded, with millions of people going to Facebook (the one who came with the idea and implemented it first) just to access the myriad apps available. In the meanwhile, MySpace was still suspicious of the whole deal, so it delayed opening its platform.
Until yesterday. A sandbox for application creators was rolled out yesterday, dubbed Developer Platform Site, and it will allow everybody to create widgets for MySpace. A little late, but they got there. "The future of the global social Web will leverage the creativity of the masses to produce meaningful and diverse social experiences, pushing the industry to be more innovative and progressive," said Chris DeWolfe, MySpace chief executive.
The Developer Platform Site's toys, created by engineers or just by people in the know, will, of course, be tested by the team put together by MySpace, in order to prevent malicious software from reaching users' computers. "Applications will be governed by the same privacy controls that are in place for members," Aber Whitcomb, MySpace chief technology officer, said.
Another issue that others, including Facebook, encountered will be attended too, the infringement of copyrights forcing some very successful applications (Scrabulous for one) to be brought down.