Google Friend Connect launched with Twitter this morning, a big win for Google in the fight for control over user logins on third party sites. Recent speculation was that Twitter would be partnering with Facebook to integrate Connect first.
Twitter quickly corrected stories, telling reporters that they’ll soon integrate with Facebook Connect, too. Twitter CEO Evan Williams even Tweeted about it, saying “For the record: Twitter did not “choose Google, not Facebook.” We’re working with both. We have more to do on the FB side before launch.”
But, er, hey Twitter, what about MySpace? You know, the company that you agreed to launch with back in May? Here, this screen shot may jog your memory.
But Twitter is dead silent on their MySpace relationship. No mention of it in Evan’s twitter message. No response to my email asking for their current position on MySpace. Just silence.
MySpace isn’t much help either. All they’ll say is “Twitter has been a valuable strategic partner in defining the MySpaceID program. We continue to work collaboratively with Twitter and will share more news on MySpaceID implementation specifics when we have it.”
Which is sort of like saying nothing at all.
Update: Twitter’s Evan Williams responds “Yes, [we are integrating with MySpace]. The onus is on us currently to apply the engineering resources.” He actually said “Yes, all of the above. The onus is on us currently to apply the engineering resources.” But I take that to mean he’s integrating with MySpace given my question.
Update 2: Biz Stone made it even clearer on the Twitter blog that the company is working on its MySpace integration as well. In a post titled “Let’s All Be Friends,” he explains:
Twitter plans to integrate with the open initiatives offered by our friends at MySpace, Facebook, and Google. We officially announced our intent to work with MySpace back in May because we believe strongly in offering the exchange of public information between our complimentary services.
Yesterday, Google included Twitter in their Friend Connect program which means folks can stay connected with their Twitter network on web sites that have activated the service. This particular integration did not require effort on our part so it was a quick win for folks who use Twitter and want to connect on participating web sites.
Integrating with MySpace as well as Facebook Connect will require some development effort on our part. Now that we have 13 software engineers working at Twitter and our reliability continues to improve we’re getting closer to integrating with your favorite social networks.
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