Yahoo supports Google social network applications

SAN FRANCISCO – Yahoo Inc. said it supports a program by archrival Google Inc. to develop applications for social networks and will help create a joint foundation to keep it alive.

Google launched its OpenSocial network in November to lure developers already creating popular Web applications on social networks like Facebook.

Many social networks, including News Corp.-owned MySpace, Friendster and hi5, support OpenSocial, a set of technological specifications that lets software developers build applications such as games and photo shows that can run on any social network.

The scope of OpenSocial is increasing and OpenSocial applications reach more than 200 million users, said Joe Kraus, Google’s director of product management.

“If you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together,” Kraust said of the OpenSocial effort, which is currently endorsed by more than 15 companies.

Yahoo, Google and MySpace also said they will create the OpenSocial Foundation to maintain a neutral, community-governed forum for developing applications. It will be set up as a nonprofit entity, with assets to be assigned to the new organization by July 1.

“Common specifications are beneficial to the developer community at large and encourage innovation” and eventually enrich the Web experience for people, Wade Chambers, said Yahoo’s vice president of Platforms.

He declined to provide specific examples of how Yahoo plans to use OpenSocial applications.

Facebook, which got $240 million from Microsoft Corp. last year, has not yet endorsed OpenSocial. It offers its own specifications for application developers.

Yahoo is also the subject of a $42 billion hostile offer from Microsoft, which has not signed on to OpenSocial either.

But Yahoo’s Chambers said they would welcome Microsoft or any other company that wants to sign on.

“Any large player should be open to participate,” he said.