MySpace Introduces ‘Data Availability’ with Landmark Launch Partners Yahoo!, eBay, Photobucket, and Twitter
Leading Global Social Network Continues Commitment to Network Openness and Creation of a More Social Web
MySpace Empowers Users To Share Their User Generated Content and Data Web-Wide
LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--MySpace, the world’s most popular social
network, alongside Yahoo!, eBay, Photobucket, and Twitter, today
announced the launch of the MySpace ‘Data
Availability’ initiative, a ground-breaking
offering to empower the global MySpace community to share their public
profile data to websites of their choice throughout the Internet. Today’s
announcement throws open the doors to traditionally closed networks by
putting users in the driver’s seat of their
data and Web identity. The launch of the Data Availability initiative
marks the first time that a social Website has enabled its community to
dynamically share public profile information with other sites.
“The walls around the garden are coming down—the
implementation of Data Availability injects a new layer of social
activity and creates a more dynamic Internet,”
said Chris DeWolfe, CEO and co-founder of MySpace. “We,
alongside our Data Availability launch partners, are pioneering a new
way for the global community to integrate their social experiences
Web-wide.”
Data Availability—User
Interface
Data Availability pioneers a new way for users to dynamically share
their user generated content and data with websites of their choosing.
The Data Availability initiative is founded first and foremost on the
simple and comprehensive user control of their own content and data—users
will have control over what information they share and who they share it
with. Additionally, rather than updating information across the Web (eg.
default photo, favorite movies or music) for each site where a user
spends time, now a user can update their profile in one place and
dynamically share that information with the other sites they care about.
MySpace will be rolling out a centralized location within the site that
allows users to manage how their content and data is made available to
third party sites they have chosen to engage with.
Inside this opt-in framework, they will be offered the opportunity to
share their MySpace profiles with the site they are visiting. MySpace,
and its landmark launch partners, will be allowing users to dynamically
share the content and data of their choosing including: (1) Publicly
available basic profile information, (2) MySpace photos, (3) MySpaceTV
videos, and (4) friend networks. Integration of the Data Availability
project will roll to MySpace users and participating Websites in the
coming weeks.
“The launch of Data Availability is an
unprecedented move to further socialize the Web and empower users to
control their online content and data,” said
Amit Kapur, Chief Operating Officer, MySpace. “We
are thrilled to begin this initiative with a world class suite of
landmark partners and invite websites around the world to participate.”
Partner Website Functionality
Data Availability is about enriching existing Internet destinations with
social functionality and valuable pre-existing user generated content
and data. By empowering users with the ability to dynamically share,
those destinations will create deeper levels of social engagement and
new functionality throughout their site. As the online home to 117
million users worldwide, this groundbreaking initiative enables the
larger Web to leverage the highly engaged and passionate MySpace global
community.
To ease implementation for participating sites, the MySpace Data
Availability initiative uses OAUTH and Restful APIs as its core
technology underpinnings. MySpace is using open standards in an effort
to embrace the open source community and allow the implementation to be
as non-proprietary as possible. Today’s
announcement is the first step of MySpace’s
larger data portability initiatives coming down the pipeline. MySpace is
officially joining the Data Portability Project demonstrating our
continued commitment to openness and open standards.
Data Availability on Yahoo!
MySpace’s Data Availability complements Yahoo!’s
recently announced Yahoo! Open Strategy (Y!OS), a company-wide
initiative to open Yahoo! to application developers, unlock the rich
social connections across the Yahoo! network, and enable users to
customize and make more personally relevant their experiences of Yahoo!
and other Internet services.
On Yahoo!, the Data Availability initiative may appear to users in a
variety of ways. For example, users that have chosen to share their
MySpace content and data with Yahoo! Instant Messenger might find their
MySpace default photo, interests, and favorite music displayed to their
Messenger contacts directly in the IM client. Additionally, MySpace
users will be able to choose to display their data within Yahoo!’s
universal profile or leverage it in Yahoo! Mail's smarter inbox, once
those upcoming releases are deployed.
“Yahoo! believes in an open Internet that
gives users the flexibility to make their Web experiences as relevant,
social and personalized as they can. As a longtime collaborator with
MySpace on a variety of projects, including the OpenSocial Foundation, we’re
thrilled to support this new initiative,”
said Ash Patel, Executive Vice President, Platforms, at Yahoo!. “The
Yahoo! Open Strategy and MySpace Data Availability are a giant leap
towards a more social and open Internet.”
Data Availability on eBay
Through the MySpace Data Availability implementation, eBay profiles can
be easily enhanced with MySpace bios, interests, pictures, and videos.
In a socially driven marketplace, this will yield a deeper connection
between individuals. When browsing or transacting on eBay, the
availability of external social information can help users make good
decisions quickly about whom they can do business with, and perhaps even
make a new friend.
"The MySpace Data Availability initiative will further enrich eBay
profiles and create a more elaborate social experience for buyers and
sellers worldwide," said Matt Ackley, VP of Internet Marketing of eBay.
"As the world's largest social commerce site, eBay is dedicated to
creating a social context and personality for the people with whom you
transact."
Data Availability on Photobucket
MySpace's Data Availability initiative will allow Photobucket users to
enjoy a more seamless photo experience with their MySpace profile.
Photobucket users will be able to have a single view of their photos
across multiple services, as well as opt-in to displaying their MySpace
profile data in their Photobucket albums. Users will also be able to
leverage their existing connections on MySpace to share their content on
Photobucket more easily, without having to re-establish connections and
friend lists.
"MySpace users invest a huge amount of time populating their profile and
personal interest data. With the large overlap in users, the Data
Availability initiative will allow Photobucket to utilize this profile
data to enhance its own products," said Alex Welch, President of
Photobucket. "The combination of the Data Availability initiative and
the recently announced Photobucket Open-API provides new opportunities
to create a more open web"
Data Availability on Twitter
Twitter profiles at present are primarily focused on current updates and
are relatively sparse on user information. The MySpace Data Availability
initiative enriches the current Twitter profile by empowering users to
incorporate their MySpace profile content and data points previously not
included in the Twitter product suite. Once the implementation is
complete, a user will be able to bring in their MySpace content and data
including their bio, blogs, and photos, ultimately making the Twitter
site a more enriching site with content previously unavailable in its
interface.
"Finding friends to follow is central to Twitter's value as a real-time
communication utility." Says Biz Stone, Co-founder, Twitter. "This
project enhances discovery and connectivity making Twitter more relevant
and useful—we're very excited."
Background and jpg mock for the MySpace Data Availability initiative is
available to media upon request.
About MySpace
MySpace, a unit of Fox Interactive Media Inc., is the premier lifestyle
portal for connecting with friends, discovering popular culture, and
making a positive impact on the world. MySpace has created a connected
global community by integrating web profiles, blogs, instant messaging,
e-mail, music streaming, music videos, photo galleries, classified
listings, events, groups, college communities, and member forums.
MySpace's international network includes more than 20 localized
community sites in the United States, Brazil, Canada, Latin America,
Mexico, Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy,
Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia,
India, Japan, and New Zealand. Fox Interactive Media is a division of
News Corp. (NYSE:NWS)(NYSE:NWS.A)(ASX:NWS)(ASX:NWSLV).
(*) Among the top 2000 domains comScore Media Metrix, March 2008. For
more information on comScore Networks, please go to http://www.comscore.com.
About Yahoo! Inc.
Yahoo! Inc. is a leading global Internet brand and one of the most
trafficked Internet destinations worldwide. Yahoo! is focused on
powering its communities of users, advertisers, publishers, and
developers by creating indispensable experiences built on trust. Yahoo!
is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, visit pressroom.yahoo.com
or the company's blog, Yodel Anecdotal.
About eBay Inc.
Founded in 1995, eBay Inc. connects hundreds of millions of people
around the world every day, empowering them to explore new opportunities
and innovate together. eBay Inc. does this by providing the Internet
platforms of choice for global commerce, payments and communications.
Since its inception, eBay Inc. has expanded to include some of the
strongest brands in the world, including eBay, PayPal, Skype, StubHub, Shopping.com,
and others. eBay Inc. is headquartered in San Jose, California.
About Photobucket
Photobucket is one of the Web’s most popular
sites, with more than 40 million unique users worldwide* linking
billions of personal photos, graphics, slideshows and videos daily to
hundreds of thousands of Web sites, including Bebo, Blogger, Craigslist,
eBay, Facebook, Friendster, hi5, MySpace, Orkut, Xanga and many others.
In addition to linking content, Photobucket users share their personal
digital media by email, instant messaging, and mobile devices. Every
day, more than 10 million personal photos, graphics and videos are
uploaded to Photobucket for sharing with family, friends and the online
world. The company actively moderates content to create a safe
environment for its users, partners and advertisers. Photobucket has
offices in Palo Alto, California and Denver, Colorado and is located
online at http://www.photobucket.com.
For the latest feature announcements and news, please visit the
Photobucket blog at http://blog.photobucket.com.
*comScore Media Metrix, March 2008
About Twitter
Founded in 2007, Twitter, Inc. is a communication utility which asks one
simple question, "What are you doing?" Responses of 140 characters or
less are routed in real time to friends and others over the web, mobile
texting, instant message, or downloadable applications for Mac or PC.