Yahoo!, MySpace, Google To Form OpenSocial

Yahoo!, MySpace and Google have agreed to form the OpenSocial Foundation to ensure the neutrality and longevity of OpenSocial as an open, community-governed specification for building social applications across the Web. The OpenSocial Foundation will be an independent non-profit entity with a formal intellectual property and governance framework; related assets will be assigned to the new organisation by 1 July 2008.

The OpenSocial foundation will provide transparency and operational guidelines around technology, documentation, intellectual property and other issues related to the evolution of the OpenSocial platform, while also ensuring all stakeholders share influence over its future direction.Yahoo!’s support of OpenSocial and role as a founding member of the new foundation are landmarks for the rapidly growing specification which will now offer developers the potential to connect with more than 500 million people worldwide.“Yahoo! believes in supporting community-driven industry specifications and expects that OpenSocial will fuel innovation and make the Web more relevant and more enjoyable to millions of users,” said Wade Chambers, vice president, platforms, Yahoo!. “Our support builds on similar efforts with the OpenID community and will expand the opportunity for developers and publishers to benefit from an open and increasingly social Web.”“Together with the OpenSocial community, we are setting new industry specifications for social Web application development,” said Steve Pearman, SVP, product strategy, MySpace. “Yahoo! is an important addition to the OpenSocial movement, and through this foundation we will work together to provide developers with the tools to make the Internet move faster and to foster more innovation and creativity.”“OpenSocial has been a community-driven specification from the beginning,” said Joe Kraus, director, product management, Google. “The formation of this foundation will ensure that it remains so in perpetuity. Developers and websites should feel secure that OpenSocial will be forever free and open.”The OpenSocial Foundation website will serve as the portal for the community to find all information about OpenSocial and the foundation as they evolve. Developers and website owners can now visit www.opensocial.org for the latest specifications, links to other resources and the opportunity to get involved.Engineers from Yahoo!, MySpace and Google will continue to work together and with the OpenSocial community to further advance the specification through the new foundation, continuing several core elements of OpenSocial since its announcement by Google, MySpace and many others in November 2007.