Social networking provider MySpace has announced the launch of the MySpace Data Availability initiative, along with Yahoo!, eBay (News - Alert), Photobucket, and Twitter.

 

This initiative will enable the members of the global MySpace (News - Alert) community share their public profile data with Web sites of their choice. It marks the first time a social Web site has enabled its community to dynamically share public profile information with other sites.

 

Chris DeWolfe, CEO and co-founder, MySpace, said that the implementation of Data Availability injects a new layer of social activity and creates a more dynamic Internet, as MySpace is pioneering a new way for the global community to integrate their social experiences Web-wide.

 

Through the Data Availability initiative, users will have control over what information they share and with whom they share it. Also, users can update their profiles in one place, and dynamically share that information with the other sites, instead of updating information for each site. There will be a centralized location within the MySpace Web site that allows users to manage how their content and data is made available to third-party sites.

 

Users will also be able to share their MySpace profiles with sites they are visiting. MySpace and its launch partners will be allowing users to dynamically share the content and data they wish to share, including their publicly available basic profile information, their MySpace photos, their MySpaceTV videos, and their friend networks.

 

Amit Kapur, Chief Operating Officer, MySpace, commented that the launch of Data Availability is an unprecedented move to further socialize the Web and enable users control their online content and data, and the company is thrilled to begin this initiative with an impressive suite of landmark partners.

 

The Web sites deploying the Data Availability initiative will create deeper levels of social engagement and new functionality. The highly engaged MySpace global community serves 117 million users worldwide, and this initiative enables the larger Web to leverage this community.

 

MySpace Data Availability initiative utilizes OAUTH and Restful APIs as its core technologies to make implementation for participating sites easy and convenient. It is using open standards in an effort to embrace the open source community and allow the implementation to be as non-proprietary as possible. There are still larger data portability initiatives to be launched by MySpace, and this launch is the first move towards the direction.

 

MySpace says it is officially joining the Data Portability Project, displaying its commitment to openness and open standards.