People Search Digest

Some of the features you love on Facebook are about to come to MySpace. On Tuesday, February 5th, MySpace will formally launch its developer platform, the MySpace API (application programming interface). Like the Facebook API, the platform allows developers to create applications that make use of MySpace member profile information and their connections with other users. Furthermore, the platform is compatible with Google’s OpenSocial platform, so that applications written for OpenSocial will only need a few tweaks to work on MySpace.

Right now, MySpace is far behind Facebook in this area. It doesn’t have a community of loyal developers like Facebook has, nor the same technology. But MySpace plans on luring more developers to its site though monetary incentives. “I will be focused on making a platform for developers to monetize and promote their applications,” MySpace Chief Operating Officer Amit Kapur told Reuters. The much larger user list (MySpace’s 200 million users vs. Facebooks 63 million) should also be a draw for developers wanting more exposure.

But for the average, non-developer social-networking-site user, all that this really means is that some of the features found on Facebook will now most likely show up on MySpace. How this will affect the use of MySpace as a social search tool is still to be seen; however the new API invites innovation, which could only lead to good things ahead.