MySpace to launch new application

NEW YORK — MySpace users will be able to add games, e-mail services and other features from outside developers without ever leaving the site under a new program that the popular online community will fully launch next month.

MySpace already allows users to customize their personal profile pages. But they generally must go off the site, grab the lines of programming code they're interested in and cut and paste that into their profiles. Now, users will be able to add those features more directly.

Under the MySpace Developer Platform, an outside e-mail provider can write a program that sits on the personal home page users see when they log on. Users can check for new messages right there.

Or — instead of taking visitors to another site to view photo albums — a photo-sharing service can write a program that appears on a MySpace profile page that friends visit.

The company planned to unveil details of the previously announced platform today and said developers would be able to write and test interactive programs, called "widgets," on up to five users for a month before making them available to the broader MySpace community.

MySpace's launch of a developer platform follows a May decision by its smaller rival social network, Facebook, to open its platform to developers. That has proven a boon for music-sharing startup iLike.com, photo-sharing service Slide Inc. and other companies.

Those applications, in turn, have helped make Facebook more popular, although it still ranks second behind MySpace, a unit of News Corp.

By bringing features from other sites with the developer program, MySpace hopes users will have fewer reasons to leave the site — and view ads elsewhere.

Age, hometown, photo albums and video clips posted on MySpace profiles will be among the data available for incorporation into the widgets. The company said developers would have access only to data already publicly visible, and users can keep that information from developers by restricting profile access to friends only.

MySpace will let developers sell ads, sponsorships and products on special pages assigned to each application. Developers initially will keep all revenue. MySpace said it may later sell its own ads as well and possibly split revenue.