This morning it’s being reported by BBC News that MySpace is set to allow users to make their information available to other websites. That includes items such as photos, video, public profile information, friends’ lists and text.
It will soon let its members share the information with Yahoo, Twitter, eBay and Photobucket. Traditionally social networks like Facebook, MySpace and Bebo have locked users into their own site and made sure the content was properly guarded to ensure people kept coming back which to a certain extent has worked.
Interestingly, MySpace’s Chris DeWolfe has confirmed he is happy to work with Facebook – which would be a huge leap forward. MySpace has stressed that users will have control over what information they share and who they share it with.
Many of us now have social network profiles with lots of our contacts and connections hidden within them and I have spoken to quite a few people who think sharing these would be a great idea. I believe this is going to be an ongoing trend with the others quickly following suit because quite frankly they will have to or they will be quickly ditched for newer sites and tools.
Consumers will ultimately decide which tools help them go about their daily duties and if these tools can be used across several platforms similar to Twitter then more people will obviously start to use them, just to save time.
If these social networks genuinely want to survive they must bring down their guarding walls. One thing is for sure, if this information is secure this will be great news for all of us.
The changes are reported to be rolled out on the site across the coming weeks.
Chris Norton is the founder of Prohibition and an award winning communications consultant with more than twenty years’ experience. He was a lecturer at Leeds Beckett University and has had a varied PR career having worked both in-house and in a number of large consultancies. He is an Integrated PR and social media blogger and writes on a wide variety of blogs across a huge amount of topics from digital marketing, social media marketing right through to technology and crisis management.
