TechCrunch is reporting that MySpace is joining at least 8 other social networking players, including LinkedIn, Ning, Plaxo and Orkut in Google's OpenSocial initiative: Checkmate? MySpace To Join Google OpenSocial (confirmed).
The significance of this initiative for marketers is:
- it will make it much easier to develop applications to engage consumers via the networks they want to live in, and
- that it will create another wave of application development begging for a monetization engine. I'm sure that Google, among others, will answer the call. Profile targeting may be the immediate play, a la Facebook's Flyers Pro. But you gotta think there's a better model than that, especially in light of the kinds of concerns starting to crystallize...
