The addition of so many major players could put pressure on Facebook to join the coalition. The OpenSocial network is expected to reach more than 200 million Web users.
OpenSocial is unlikely to have any immediate effect on Facebook's popularity, but it could boost social networks left in the digital dust by MySpace and Facebook, including Google-run Orkut, which is popular in Brazil and India but never gained traction in the United States.
Google also benefits in another way: As developers build more programs helping social networks gain more users, it is likely to sell more ads.
Talks with Santa Monica-based MySpace, which has 110 million users, kicked off about a year ago, Schmidt said. In August 2006, Google struck a $900-million advertising partnership with MySpace and other websites owned by News Corp.'s Fox Interactive Media. At the time, Google said it was drawn to MySpace's rapid growth.
Google announced the OpenSocial platform Tuesday, just days after losing out to Microsoft in the blockbuster deal that valued 3-year-old Facebook at $15 billion.
Facebook has vaulted over rivals to become the social network with the greatest momentum, adding about 1 million users a week. A flood of free software programs -- to join causes, book travel, turn your friends into virtual zombies -- has been a hit with users. Millions of users signed up for the most popular programs in a matter of weeks.
But Facebook's approach is in stark contrast to the one taken by Google and its partners. Facebook requires developers to use its proprietary software language to write programs. With Google's OpenSocial, developers now have the option of using a common language for many social networks. The biggest Facebook developers, including Slide, RockYou, iLike and Flixter, have all said they plan to do so.
Facebook also had endeared itself to developers by allowing them to advertise on its pages, while MySpace has not. MySpace executives have said change is coming, including ad-sharing for some programmers.
A question unanswered by Thursday's events was whether the financial terms of OpenSocial programs would stay the same from one site to another. That has yet to be sorted out, people familiar with the process said.
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jessica.guynn@latimes.com
joseph.menn@latimes.com
