San Francisco - MySpace is hoping to become everyone's space. The world's largest social networking site is to allow users to transfer key information from their profiles to other websites, ending the "walled garden" approach that had turned many users to transfer to the more open system of MySpace rival Facebook.
"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," MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe said in a statement. "We are pioneering a new way for the global community to integrate their social experiences Web-wide."
MySpace said that it has signed agreements with Yahoo, eBay, Photobucket and Twitter to participate in the project that will allow MySpace users to add their data to those sites with the click of a button.
Under the new system, MySpace will create a central location within its site where users can manage how their content and data is made available to the third-party sites. The system will allow users to share publicly available basic profile information, MySpace photos, MySpaceTV videos and friend networks.
Users can gain access to the partner sites by entering their MySpace user name and passwords, but the third-party sites will never store or cache any of the MySpace data. The new tools will allow people to automatically find their MySpace friends on other sites, or upload photos to their profiles on several sites at once.
Long term the goal is for MySpace is to become a central repository of a user's digital data, says Michael Arrington, editor of the influential TechCrunch blog.
"Users eventually need one place on the Internet to store their data, or lots of places to store different types of data. But what they don't want is today's world where they are recreating and storing the same data over a plethora of social networks just because all those sites refuse to share," he said.
"By acting first, MySpace takes the lead and has a shot at being the long term winner - meaning lots of people use MySpace as the place to store data, and share it out to other applications from there. Look for Google to make their move next."
