MySpace to Open Platform to Developers

Following the lead of rival Facebook, social networking giant MySpace will launch the MySpace Developer Platform next week, giving programmers deeper access to its site--possibly including the ability to tap into MySpace user data, AP reports. MySpace already informally allows programmers to develop widgets for it, and hopes the new platform will help developers make more money through the site.

MySpace also hopes to avoid the kind of woes Facebook has run into with its popular but embattled Scrabulous application, with company officials hinting that they will have rules to prevent such disputes - in the case of Scrabulous, over copyright. Despite the formal launch, programmers will not yet be able to integrate their tools with the site; that will come at a later, yet-unnamed date. (More MySpace stories.)