Confirmed: MySpace Joins Google’s OpenSocial (More Analysis from R/WW to Follow)

The big news of the day is that MySpace, the leading social networking platform, has joined Google’s OpenSocial project as a partner. OpenSocial is a set of common APIs for building social applications across the web – and it will be officially released tonight here. The press release today states that the MySpace/Google partnership “spearheads an initiative to standardize and simplify the development of social applications.” It also states that MySpace will continue building out its own MySpace Platform, which will support OpenSocial.

We will have a deeper analysis of the news later today, but for now here are the main bits from the press release. That is followed by a screenshot showing Flixter in MySpace, and a video that Robert Scoble did with Chris DeWolfe, CEO of MySpace, and Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google.

“Our partnership with Google allows developers to gain massive distribution without unnecessary specialized development for every platform,” said Chris DeWolfe, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of MySpace. “This is about helping the start-up spend more time building a great product rather than rebuilding it for every social network. We’re pleased to collaborate with Google to establish a landmark standard for social applications.”

As a founding member of OpenSocial, MySpace will provide critical user mass and platform guidance. The OpenSocial standards are designed to evolve through contribution from the open source community and as new features are developed by various partners. Global members of the OpenSocial community include Engage.com, Friendster, hi5, Hyves, imeem, LinkedIn, Ning, Oracle, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, and XING.

“As the most trafficked website in the country and the most popular social network in the world, MySpace is one of the leading forces in the global social Web,” said Dr. Eric Schmidt, Chairman of the Executive Committee and Chief Executive Officer of Google. “We’re thrilled to grow our strategic relationship with MySpace by joining forces on this important initiative.”

Here is a screenshot of Flixster integrated within MySpace (click for full-size image):

Robert Scoble video interview with Chris DeWolfe and Eric Schmidt: