MySpace to Connect with Facebook?

MySpace - looking to Facebook for help
MySpace - looking to Facebook for help

MySpace is preparing itself to link-up with Facebook, with news that the site is to integrate Facebook Connect into its pages.

This will mark a significant change for the service, which was the social network of choice before Facebook arrived and stole most of its thunder.

MySpace is significantly repositioning itself, however, as an entertainment hub and becoming something of a social recluse.

In a statement it told the Telegraph last week that it "is a not a social network anymore. It is now a social entertainment destination."

FaceSpace

Severe losses, which have been called not sustainable by owners News Corp, and dwindling users have prompted a serious rethink about the site and it seems that using Facebook's service for third parties - that allows users to 'connect' their Facebook identity and friends to any site - is part of this.

Although MySpace hasn't confirmed that this is part of its plans, a number of people at the Web 2.0 Summit have, with one noting: "MySpace are going to install a Facebook Connect button across the site, but no one at the company can admit it publicly yet. They have to.

"They need the same audience to come to MySpace, that now goes to Facebook, if their re-launch to a social entertainment portal is going to have any traction."

Considering it's rumoured that MySpace's UK traffic is around 3.3 million, compared to Facebook's 26 million – this does seem to be the case.

Marc Chacksfield

Marc Chacksfield is the Editor In Chief, Shortlist.com at DC Thomson. He started out life as a movie writer for numerous (now defunct) magazines and soon found himself online - editing a gaggle of gadget sites, including TechRadar, Digital Camera World and Tom's Guide UK. At Shortlist you'll find him mostly writing about movies and tech, so no change there then.