MySpace Platform To Launch Next Week
MySpace is gearing up to launch MySpace Platform, according to a number of third party developers who've been contacted for input on the product. While this has been rumored since June, this is the first indication that the service is preparing to actually launch.
Context & Ripple Effects
The rumor has been on the record since June, when the Financial Times reported that MySpace would follow its rival's lead into third-party applications; what changes with this report is that the rumor is now a dated commitment — developers say they have been contacted for input and the launch is set for next week. It is also the latest in a string of catch-up moves this year, from the MySpace News product launched in March to the MTV political dialogues framed as answering CNN-YouTube.
The timing matters because MySpace's position is slipping: coverage in September put its page views down nearly 20% as its dominance erodes. The pickup across Compete, TechCrunch, Read/WriteWeb and Jason Calacanis's blog shows how much attention now attaches to anything that answers Facebook's application ecosystem — the same question Calacanis raised publicly about whether developers should trust Facebook with their business.
First-order effects
- Third-party developers gain a second large social graph to build against within days, and MySpace's outreach suggests they will have input into the product before it ships rather than after.
- For MySpace itself, the platform is an immediate response to the reported ~20% page-view decline — third-party apps are a way to deepen engagement without building every feature in-house.
Second-order effects
- Facebook's application ecosystem now faces direct competition for developer time and attention, sharpening the trust-and-distribution debate Calacanis and others were already having about building on a single platform.
- An open app layer gives MySpace more surfaces to run its existing ad-targeting capability — which coverage in August noted already exceeded what Facebook was then introducing — against a growing inventory of third-party content.
Third-order effects
- If both major networks stay open, social networking consolidates around platform economics: the networks own identity and distribution while independent developers supply features, shifting value from page ownership to placement inside someone else's graph.
- The pattern points toward platform governance becoming the contested issue — who approves apps, who keeps the data, and whether developers can be locked out — since the entire strategy depends on third parties trusting the host.
The trend: Social networks are racing to open their graphs to third-party developers, turning application ecosystems rather than proprietary features into the battleground for engagement.