Myspace Gives Users the Option of Widespread Profile Sharing

To kick off their new ‘Data Availability’ initiative, MySpace is joining forces with a few web giants - namely Yahoo!, Twitter, eBay, and Photobucket, in an effort to give Myspace members the ability to share their profile info across the web. As Brand Strategy reports:

The system claims that this helps “open the doors to traditionally closed networks by putting users in the driver’s seat of their data and web identity.” It claims that this is the first time that a social website has enabled its community to dynamically share public profile information with other sites.

Unlike the Facebook system Beacon, which tells people’s online ‘friends’ what they are buying/doing online if users choose to leave it active, MySpace claims that this initiative puts the user in charge of their own data: “Users will have control over what information they share and who they share it with.”

Myspace users can choose to share their photos, videos, network of friends, and any other publicly available profile info. While Brand Strategy wonder if this is “an attempt to make life easier for consumers or a way for corporates to gather ever more data on their users”, we’re pretty sure more than a few Myspacers will like being able to streamline the management of their public internet persona - something that most active Myspace users devote a lot of energy to.

Brand Strategy Blog: MySpace, Yahoo, eBay, Photobucket and Twitter get into data sharing; the future of online profiles?