MySpace, Microsoft ink two partnerships

MySpace announced Monday a twofold partnership with Microsoft: first, a MySpace mobile application for Windows Mobile phones, and second, support for Microsoft's Silverlight technology in the News Corp.-owned social network's developer platform.

The Windows Mobile application will be available this summer for Windows Mobile 6.1 phones and then more broadly in the fall. It'll be preloaded on Windows Mobile phones manufactured by LG, too. The app joins existing MySpace mobile products for iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Sidekick, Palm, and Nokia handsets.

As for the Silverlight announcement, this means that developers building applications for MySpace's platform--which is based on the Google-created OpenSocial standard--have access to Adobe Flash competitor.

The announcements themselves are fairly mundane. But here's what's really interesting: Microsoft has invested $240 million in Facebook, which was at one point the second-place name in social networking--behind MySpace. But while MySpace still has more users in the U.S., Facebook is now significantly bigger worldwide.

In recent months, perhaps as a reaction to Facebook's explosive growth and domination of the social-networking landscape, MySpace has been making numerous efforts to return to its roots as a music and media hub.

[shootthecops]

watching microsoft plot forced lock-in is like observing a pharmaceutical company create addicts for their opiates.

[JasonCe]

sure, when a company introduces a new product, its called competition. when microsoft introduces a new product, its called "forced lock-in".

microsoft has every right to introduce new products in any market segment they see fit. if you don't like it, don't use it.

you ms bashers. go educate yourself.

[shootthecops]

microsoft has been fined billions of dollars for doing just this, creating a product without proper documentation so they can bully others. educate yourself, start with the WordPerfect lawsuit.

[kojacked]

"for doing just this". Wrong. Try again. This is unrelated to bundling and monopolistic practices. Maybe you shoulde do the rest of us a favor and change your name to something we can all live by, "shootmyself".