MySpace to open software code to outsiders

News Corp's MySpace, the world's most popular social-networking website, has followed its rivals Facebook and Bebo by opening its software code to outside developers this week.

Chief operating officer Amit Kapur, promoted last week to lead the project, is giving programmers access to member information such as friend lists, and will let them build and test their own applications.

Adding games and services may help MySpace lure marketers and attract users as it competes against faster-growing Facebook. Access to the software has been in the works "for quite a long time," Mr Kapur said, declining to be more specific.

Programs will be created and tested during the next month before MySpace users can access them, said Mr Kapur, who replaced site co-founder Josh Berman last week.

"We're basically engaging a community of thousands of developers to build features," said Mr Kapur (26).

Users will be able to embed new programs on their private and public profile pages. Developers will retain all of the revenue generated from ads, sponsorships and e-commerce on the applications' profile pages, Mr Kapur said. No advertising is allowed in the programs themselves.

Facebook began allowing independent developers to build programs for the site last May. Facebook Platform, the programme through which it opens up its code, has been hugely successful. As of last December, more than 8,000 applications had been created and the company estimates more than 150,000 developers have worked on them, with more than 80 per cent of users having installed at least one application.

When Bebo opened its platform in December it provided support for Facebook Platform, which means applications developed for the rival site can run within Bebo. It also said it would shortly provide support for the OpenSocial platform, an initiative led by Google which is seen as being a rival to Facebook.

In December, Facebook's unique visitors rose more than fourfold from a year earlier to 97.8 million. MySpace's visitors increased 19 per cent to 107.2 million, according to media monitors ComScore.

Sales at the division that includes MySpace climbed 54 per cent to $798 million in the second quarter, News Corp said this week when it reported earnings. Operating profit climbed 23-fold to $23 million. - (Bloomberg)