MySpace to allow users to share profile data with Yahoo

LOS ANGELES: Social networking site MySpace said on Thursday it will soon enable users to quickly share profile data with Web sites operated by Yahoo Inc, eBay Inc and others.

MySpace aims to save its users keystrokes and allow them to export their photos, videos and lists of friends.

``There's this concept that social networks are walled gardens,'' said Amit Kapur, MySpace's chief operating officer. ``We're taking those walls down.''

Other sites that can receive the MySpace data include Twitter and Photobucket. Like MySpace, the photo-sharing site Photobucket is a unit of News Corp. The participating sites have a total of 150 million users and reach 85 percent of the Internet market in the United States.

Many users of the sites already have accounts with MySpace, the world's largest social networking site, with 117 million members in more than 20 countries.

MySpace will roll out the new feature in the next several weeks. Among other things, MySpace users could have their default photo and music interests appear in Yahoo Instant Messenger or enrich their eBay profiles to improve exchanges between buyers and sellers.

``By injecting MySpace data, you're able to get a little bit more context about that person. As a result of that, you can make a more informed purchase decision,'' Kapur said.

MySpace users can control what data is provided to other Web sites. The move is in line with a broader push to make the online profiles of Internet users compatible with multiple Web sites.

Last June, five companies including Google Inc, Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo formed the OpenID Coalition to create a single username and password for people to use across the Internet.

Google, Yahoo and MySpace also announced in March the creation of the OpenSocial Foundation to create a common coding standard for social networking applications that work across the Web.

Yahoo spokeswoman Terrell Karlsten said the MySpace data would feed into a company initiative to have its members profiles unified and used across its mail, fantasy sports and other pages.

``This is delivering on our commitment to be open,'' she said