MySpace Introduces 'Data Availability' with Landmark Launch Partners Yahoo!, eBay, Photobucket, and Twitter

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[May 08, 2008]

MySpace Introduces 'Data Availability' with Landmark Launch Partners Yahoo!, eBay, Photobucket, and Twitter

LOS ANGELES --(Business Wire)-- MySpace, the world's most popular social network, alongside Yahoo!, eBay, Photobucket, and Twitter, today announced the launch of the MySpace 'Data Availability' initiative, a ground-breaking offering to empower the global MySpace community to share their public profile data to websites of their choice throughout the Internet. Today's announcement throws open the doors to traditionally closed networks by putting users in the driver's seat of their data and Web identity. The launch of the Data Availability initiative marks the first time that a social Website has enabled its community to dynamically share public profile information with other sites.

"The walls around the garden are coming down--the implementation of Data Availability injects a new layer of social activity and creates a more dynamic Internet," said Chris DeWolfe, CEO and co-founder of MySpace. "We, alongside our Data Availability launch partners, are pioneering a new way for the global community to integrate their social experiences Web-wide."

Data Availability--User Interface

Data Availability pioneers a new way for users to dynamically share their user generated content and data with websites of their choosing. The Data Availability initiative is founded first and foremost on the simple and comprehensive user control of their own content and data--users will have control over what information they share and who they share it with. Additionally, rather than updating information across the Web (eg. default photo, favorite movies or music) for each site where a user spends time, now a user can update their profile in one place and dynamically share that information with the other sites they care about. MySpace will be rolling out a centralized location within the site that allows users to manage how their content and data is made available to third party sites they have chosen to engage with.

Inside this opt-in framework, they will be offered the opportunity to share their MySpace profiles with the site they are visiting. MySpace, and its landmark launch partners, will be allowing users to dynamically share the content and data of their choosing including: (1) Publicly available basic profile information, (2) MySpace photos, (3) MySpaceTV videos, and (4) friend networks. Integration of the Data Availability project will roll to MySpace users and participating Websites in the coming weeks.

"The launch of Data Availability is an unprecedented move to further socialize the Web and empower users to control their online content and data," said Amit Kapur, Chief Operating Officer, MySpace. "We are thrilled to begin this initiative with a world class suite of landmark partners and invite websites around the world to participate."

Partner Website Functionality

Data Availability is about enriching existing Internet destinations with social functionality and valuable pre-existing user generated content and data. By empowering users with the ability to dynamically share, those destinations will create deeper levels of social engagement and new functionality throughout their site. As the online home to 117 million users worldwide, this groundbreaking initiative enables the larger Web to leverage the highly engaged and passionate MySpace global community.

To ease implementation for participating sites, the MySpace Data Availability initiative uses OAUTH and Restful APIs as its core technology underpinnings. MySpace is using open standards in an effort to embrace the open source community and allow the implementation to be as non-proprietary as possible. Today's announcement is the first step of MySpace's larger data portability initiatives coming down the pipeline. MySpace is officially joining the Data Portability Project demonstrating our continued commitment to openness and open standards.

Data Availability on Yahoo!

MySpace's Data Availability complements Yahoo!'s recently announced Yahoo! Open Strategy (Y!OS), a company-wide initiative to open Yahoo! to application developers, unlock the rich social connections across the Yahoo! network, and enable users to customize and make more personally relevant their experiences of Yahoo! and other Internet services.

On Yahoo!, the Data Availability initiative may appear to users in a variety of ways. For example, users that have chosen to share their MySpace content and data with Yahoo! Instant Messenger might find their MySpace default photo, interests, and favorite music displayed to their Messenger contacts directly in the IM client. Additionally, MySpace users will be able to choose to display their data within Yahoo!'s universal profile or leverage it in Yahoo! Mail's smarter inbox, once those upcoming releases are deployed.

"Yahoo! believes in an open Internet that gives users the flexibility to make their Web experiences as relevant, social and personalized as they can. As a longtime collaborator with MySpace on a variety of projects, including the OpenSocial Foundation, we're thrilled to support this new initiative," said Ash Patel, Executive Vice President, Platforms, at Yahoo!. "The Yahoo! Open Strategy and MySpace Data Availability are a giant leap towards a more social and open Internet."

Data Availability on eBay

Through the MySpace Data Availability implementation, eBay profiles can be easily enhanced with MySpace bios, interests, pictures, and videos. In a socially driven marketplace, this will yield a deeper connection between individuals. When browsing or transacting on eBay, the availability of external social information can help users make good decisions quickly about whom they can do business with, and perhaps even make a new friend.

"The MySpace Data Availability initiative will further enrich eBay profiles and create a more elaborate social experience for buyers and sellers worldwide," said Matt Ackley, VP of Internet Marketing of eBay. "As the world's largest social commerce site, eBay is dedicated to creating a social context and personality for the people with whom you transact."

Data Availability on Photobucket

MySpace's Data Availability initiative will allow Photobucket users to enjoy a more seamless photo experience with their MySpace profile. Photobucket users will be able to have a single view of their photos across multiple services, as well as opt-in to displaying their MySpace profile data in their Photobucket albums. Users will also be able to leverage their existing connections on MySpace to share their content on Photobucket more easily, without having to re-establish connections and friend lists.

"MySpace users invest a huge amount of time populating their profile and personal interest data. With the large overlap in users, the Data Availability initiative will allow Photobucket to utilize this profile data to enhance its own products," said Alex Welch, President of Photobucket. "The combination of the Data Availability initiative and the recently announced Photobucket Open-API provides new opportunities to create a more open web"

Data Availability on Twitter

Twitter profiles at present are primarily focused on current updates and are relatively sparse on user information. The MySpace Data Availability initiative enriches the current Twitter profile by empowering users to incorporate their MySpace profile content and data points previously not included in the Twitter product suite. Once the implementation is complete, a user will be able to bring in their MySpace content and data including their bio, blogs, and photos, ultimately making the Twitter site a more enriching site with content previously unavailable in its interface.

"Finding friends to follow is central to Twitter's value as a real-time communication utility." Says Biz Stone, Co-founder, Twitter. "This project enhances discovery and connectivity making Twitter more relevant and useful--we're very excited."

Background and jpg mock for the MySpace Data Availability initiative is available to media upon request.

About MySpace

MySpace, a unit of Fox Interactive Media Inc., is the premier lifestyle portal for connecting with friends, discovering popular culture, and making a positive impact on the world. MySpace has created a connected global community by integrating web profiles, blogs, instant messaging, e-mail, music streaming, music videos, photo galleries, classified listings, events, groups, college communities, and member forums. MySpace's international network includes more than 20 localized community sites in the United States, Brazil, Canada, Latin America, Mexico, Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia, India, Japan, and New Zealand. Fox Interactive Media is a division of News Corp. (NYSE:NWS)(NYSE:NWS.A)(ASX:NWS)(ASX:NWSLV).

(*) Among the top 2000 domains comScore Media Metrix, March 2008. For more information on comScore Networks, please go to http://www.comscore.com.

About Yahoo! Inc.

Yahoo! Inc. is a leading global Internet brand and one of the most trafficked Internet destinations worldwide. Yahoo! is focused on powering its communities of users, advertisers, publishers, and developers by creating indispensable experiences built on trust. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, visit pressroom.yahoo.com or the company's blog, Yodel Anecdotal.

About eBay Inc.

Founded in 1995, eBay Inc. connects hundreds of millions of people around the world every day, empowering them to explore new opportunities and innovate together. eBay Inc. does this by providing the Internet platforms of choice for global commerce, payments and communications. Since its inception, eBay Inc. has expanded to include some of the strongest brands in the world, including eBay, PayPal, Skype, StubHub, Shopping.com, and others. eBay Inc. is headquartered in San Jose, California.

About Photobucket

Photobucket is one of the Web's most popular sites, with more than 40 million unique users worldwide* linking billions of personal photos, graphics, slideshows and videos daily to hundreds of thousands of Web sites, including Bebo, Blogger, Craigslist, eBay, Facebook, Friendster, hi5, MySpace, Orkut, Xanga and many others. In addition to linking content, Photobucket users share their personal digital media by email, instant messaging, and mobile devices. Every day, more than 10 million personal photos, graphics and videos are uploaded to Photobucket for sharing with family, friends and the online world. The company actively moderates content to create a safe environment for its users, partners and advertisers. Photobucket has offices in Palo Alto, California and Denver, Colorado and is located online at http://www.photobucket.com. For the latest feature announcements and news, please visit the Photobucket blog at http://blog.photobucket.com. *comScore Media Metrix, March 2008

About Twitter

Founded in 2007, Twitter, Inc. is a communication utility which asks one simple question, "What are you doing?" Responses of 140 characters or less are routed in real time to friends and others over the web, mobile texting, instant message, or downloadable applications for Mac or PC.

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