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Source:Mashable!

The so-called social Web just became legitimately open, as MySpace has launched the two first implementations of its Data Availability initiative on Flixster and Eventful. Simultaneously, the company is announcing that it will support OpenID, allowing its users to sign into any OpenID-enabled website using their MySpace credentials. The move comes one day before Facebook’s developer conference kicks off, where the rival social network is widely expected to announce the first implementations of its own data portability initiative: Facebook Connect.

The implementations of Data Availability on Flixster and Eventful work much as you might expect. On Flixster, users can register using their MySpace credentials, at which point they can import their profile data and connect with any of their friends who already have accounts on Flixster. On Eventful, users can not only import their profile data, but also receive alerts for events coming to their area, based on the artists that the user has friended on MySpace. Hence, if you’re friends with Augustana on MySpace and they are having a concert in your town, you’ll automatically be alerted to it.

All of this information is synced across the Data Availability supporting sites and MySpace. So, if you update your profile, edit your biography, or remove an artist from your friend’s list on MySpace, this will immediately be reflected on Flixster and Eventful. Certain more sensitive data like religion, sexual orientation, and ethnicity are only cahceable for 24 hours by Data Availability partners, while core profile data like age, location, and profile photo can be stored on the third-party site, though still synced with MySpace.

Asked about the distinction between data that is cached and that which is stored, Jim Benedetto, SVP of Technology at MySpace told me: “It’s very technically challenging to rely on MySpace’s server [for accessing all of the data]. [As a user] if I don’t want all information to be available to Flixster, I can revoke access and cut it off. But a core piece of information such as my age, email, first and last name that is key to the initial registration, Flixster can maintain control over so people can continue to login to Flixster with it.”

As for the OpenID initiative, much like other Web giants including Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo that have announced support for the movement, MySpace is only acting as an identity provider, meaning that while you can use your MySpace credentials to sign into other Web sites, you cannot yet use your credentials from another OpenID provider to sign into MySpace. Nonetheless, announcing support for OpenID is another small victory for MySpace over Facebook, and keeps the pressure on the latter to legitimately open up.

MySpace first announced Data Availability in May, with launch partners Yahoo, eBay, Twitter, and Photobucket. Asked about the status of these higher profile rollouts, Benedetto told me that “All of them are currently working on their implementations. Flixster and Eventful are just smaller companies that were able to move very quickly using our APIs to get them live.”

As for Facebook, they announced Connect with Digg signed on to support the initiative one day after MySpace kicked off Data Availability back in May. Google also has its own hat in the ring in the battle to become your universal profile with its Google Friend Connect offering.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:MySpace Data Availability Goes LiveEventful MySpace App: Tell Your Aritsts Where You Want Them to GoFlixster Calls Down $5M of its Series BEventful Launches Facebook App for Bringing Artists to Your CityTwitter Interface for Eventful: Fact of Fool?Eventful Working with Presidential Campaigns in Grassroot EffortsEventful Demands $7.5 Million - and Gets It

Source:Mashable!

Glam Media, the self-described distributed media network that sits atop the women-centric market of the Web, with either a whole or partial role in over 600 websites and blogs, is expanding its sights yet again this year, just weeks after it introduced a new advertisement marketplace called GlamX Ad Exchange. Today the company unveiled its very own application platform. It is dubbed, simply enough, Glam Application Platform.

Glam is inviting publishers, developers, and advertisers alike to exercise the platform, which it has code-named “Atako” and currently has positioned as a private beta. The company believes the strength of the release resides at its core, where an open-source design has been implemented. (Said to be based on the Google Gadget spec, the platform may also take advantage of OpenSocial and OpenID.)

The Glam Application Platform also arrives with levers to monetize developments easily, with or without advertisements. If application creators wish to go without marketing, developments may be distributed freely, as they would ordinarily, or through direct payments. Any applications borne of the Glam Application Platform will be delivered through a system called the Glam Apps Store.

Whether or not Glam has taken cue from Apple’s own App Store initiative, whose design was first publicly introduced earlier this year, Glam is no doubt employing the concept to further its mission to tap its increasingly valuable content network as broadly and deeply as possible. Since the point at which Glam surpassed iVillage last year as the dominant force in online media space specific to the female demographic, the flash terms “vertical” and “network” have in kind been touted ever more strongly by the company. With the Glam Application Platform there’s no doubt that the company sees its global audience of roughly 77 million monthly users as carrying considerably more value than has so far been realized.

The initial establishment of the Glam App Platform, because it is private beta, may have a limited impact at first, but it likely won’t be long before it does away with developer invitations. In the meantime, the effectiveness of the debut will hinge largely on which designers gain entry to start.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Glam Launches Distributed Media PlatformLifetime to Use Glam’s Managed Vertical NetworkGlam’s New Ad Exchange Connects Marketers, Publishers, & Ad NetworksGlam Media Steals Executive Talent from MySpaceGlam Reigns over iVillage as the No. 1 Network for WomenGlam Signs Google for Ad Brokerage and SearchGlamMedia Launches GlamTV, Offering Indie and Mainstream an Internet Platform

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008 at 12:01 pm and is filed under News, advertising, web 2.0, web, Web apps, Glam Media, application, women, developers, San Francisco-San Jose, application platform. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.