MySpace Co-Founder And CTO Aber Whitcomb Leaves, To Be Replaced By Alex Maghen: ”

MySpace has just announced that CTO and co-founder Aber Whitcomb will be leaving the company, to be replaced by MySpace Music’s current CTO Alex Maghen. The news doesn’t come as much of a surprise — we speculated that Whitcomb would be leaving as part of the core executive shakeup that swept through MySpace last April (if anything it’s surprising that Whitcomb stayed on this long). At this point the last remaining member of MySpace’s old guard is Tom Anderson, who remains onboard in a limited capacity.

Maghen will take on the core responsibilities for running MySpace’s platform and will report to COO Mike Jones. Before joining MySpace, Maghen has previously served as CTO of MTV Networks and CTO of Yahoo Entertainment.

Other recent MySpace hires include former AOL and Tsavo exec Mike Macadaan as VP Product and former Facebook Director Katie Geminder as SVP of User Experience and Design. But it’s still seeing a trickle of current executives leaving — earlier this month SVP of Business Development Jason Oberfest left to join social and mobile gaming company ngmoco.

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by Michael Arrington@ techcrunch.com
An update to my post earlier today that News Corp., under new CEO of Digital Media Jonathan Miller, is looking to replace MySpace CEO and cofounder Chris DeWolfe. (continues@techcrunch.com)

MySpace social network has decided to support Microsoft Windows Mobile and Microsoft Silverlight. The new MySpace mobile application, available this summer, will run on Windows phones and utilize Silverlight, Microsoft’s free browser plug-in for rich Internet application (RIA) experiences, into the MySpace Open Platform.

MySpace has also announced a MySpaceID implementation, currently in limited testing on the new Yahoo! homepage. The MySpace application is one of several new “Apps” Yahoo! recently began testing. It’ll enable users to check-in and keep up to date with the information and other people.

“We are pleased to bring MySpace users the benefits and flexibility of Microsoft’s platforms,” said Aber Whitcomb, chief technology officer of MySpace. “Our relationship enables app developers to use Silverlight to create engaging MySpace apps and allows Windows Mobile users to have a more personal MySpace experience on their phone.”

In another case of mobile-social network convergence, a cross-platform mobile instant messaging provider, SHAPE Services, is ready to support Facebook chat and avatars in its IM+ messenger for BlackBerry smartphones.

And Friendster, a leading social network in Asia, has launched support for users in the Philippines and abroad to send and receive money on Friendster. Globe Telecom will partner Friendster for money transfer through its subsidiary G-Xchange (GXI) and their GCASH mobile commerce platform.

Now, social networking is drawing new users into the mobile Web. In November, 34% of mobile phone owners in Western Europe who visited social networking sites accessed social media exclusive of all other mobile Web content, reports comScore.       

The MySpace-Microsoft collaboration is aimed to offer MySpace for Windows Mobile application which will be available for download later this summer. The application is fully optimized with a user-friendly interface and will deliver rich content and data to MySpace users on the go. 

It integrates MySpace’s main social features and functionality with the Windows operating system to provide access to the community in a way that’s familiar to the Windows Mobile user.

“Talking to family, sending pictures and connecting with long-lost friends is important to our customers, and we are giving them the option to do that on the go by teaming up with MySpace,” said Stephanie Ferguson, general manager Business Experiences Team, in the Mobile Communications Business at Microsoft Corp.

The MySpace application will be available on Windows Mobile 6.1 phones later this summer and then in the fall of 2009 through the Windows Marketplace for Mobile, directly through phones, and the Web.

LG will preload the MySpace application on its Windows phones, allowing users to gain real-time access to their global MySpace network. The new Windows phones are expected to be available in the second half of 2009.

The introduction of Silverlight into the MySpace Open Platform will allow MySpace developers more freedom and flexibility to design OpenSocial applications using the tools and technology they want. Silverlight and the MySpace Open Platform will enable developers to rapidly create and deliver MySpace applications with a custom look and feel through the flexible skinning of controls and data.

Microsoft and MySpace have released an Open Source kit to make it easy to develop OpenSocial applications using Silverlight that run on the MySpace Open Platform.

MySpace, the world’s premier social portal, today announced support for Microsoft Windows Mobile and Microsoft Silverlight. The new MySpace mobile application, available this summer, will run on Windows phones and utilize Silverlight, Microsoft Corp’s free browser plug-in that powers rich Internet application (RIA) experiences, into the MySpace Open Platform.

“We are pleased to bring MySpace users the benefits and flexibility of Microsoft’s platforms,” said Aber Whitcomb, chief technology officer of MySpace. “Our relationship enables app developers to use Silverlight to create engaging MySpace apps and allows Windows Mobile users to have a more personal MySpace experience on their phone.”

Today’s news is in conjunction with the CTIA Wireless 2009 in Las Vegas from April 1-3 and the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco March 31—April 3. MySpace and Microsoft will present a session at the Web 2.0 Expo on Silverlight on the MySpace Open Platform. The 50 minute session will take place on Thursday, April 2nd at 1:30pm PT and will focus on how developers can build Silverlight applications on MySpace using the jointly released Open Source kit for Silverlight.

Windows phones + MySpace

The companies are in close collaboration to offer a MySpace for Windows Mobile application which will be available for download later this summer. The application is fully optimized with a user-friendly interface and will deliver rich content and data to MySpace users on the go. It integrates MySpace’s main social features and functionality with the Windows operating system to provide access to the community in a way that’s familiar to the Windows Mobile user.

“Talking to family, sending pictures and connecting with long-lost friends is important to our customers, and we are giving them the option to do that on the go by teaming up with MySpace,” said Stephanie Ferguson, general manager Business Experiences Team, in the Mobile Communications Business at Microsoft Corp. “MySpace is a pioneer in the social networking space, and the MySpace application will be a tremendous asset to the collection of applications you can access on your Windows phone.”

The MySpace application will be available on Windows Mobile 6.1 phones later this summer and then in the fall of 2009 through the Windows Marketplace for Mobile, directly through phones, and the Web. LG will preload the MySpace application on their Windows phones, making it even easier than ever for users to gain real-time access to their global MySpace network. The new Windows phones are expected to be available in the second half of 2009.

Through this relationship, MySpace is further committed to mobile as a central element of the MySpace global business strategy. Today’s news also further solidifies MySpace’s leadership role in the market establishing a unique position for the company in providing applications for all major smart phone device platforms including iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Sidekick, Palm, Nokia, and now Windows Mobile. MySpace has more than 20 million worldwide mobile users.

Silverlight + MySpace

The introduction of Silverlight into the MySpace Open Platform empowers MySpace developers with more freedom and flexibility to design OpenSocial applications using the tools and technology they want. Silverlight and the MySpace Open Platform will enable developers to rapidly create and deliver sophisticated MySpace applications with a custom look and feel through the flexible skinning of controls and data.

Microsoft and MySpace have released an Open Source kit that makes it easy to develop OpenSocial applications using Silverlight that run on the MySpace Open Platform. To learn about this kit and how designers and developers can use it to create interactive, engaging apps on MySpace, please visit http://www.myspace.com/silverlightonmyspace, and read the blog post about MySpace’s support of Silverlight at developer.myspace.com.

“Microsoft is pleased to work with MySpace to enable developers to create compelling and custom OpenSocial applications using Silverlight,” said Brian Goldfarb, director of the developer platform group at Microsoft. “By utilizing the Open Source kit released by Microsoft and MySpace, developers can now harness the power of the rich media features in Silverlight to take the user experience to a new level for the MySpace community.”

The long-awaited MySpace Developer Platform (aka “MDP“) rolled out a limited launch for developers today, and a number of AlphaGeek VIPs will be attending their exclusive launch party in SF tonight. If it’s anything like their party at the Web 2.0 conference last November, it should be a night to remember

More MDP info on TechCrunch and Mashable, other geek / web 2.0 blogs.

Big props to my buddy Allen Hurff over at MySpace, as well as Aber Whitcomb, Kyle Brinkman, Steve Pearman, Stephanie Bergman, and the rest of the MDP team. I know all those folks have been busting their butts for months to get this stuff out the door. Congrats to all of them, and to Ben Metcalfe who was helping MySpace get inside the heads of the developer community to deliver a great platform rollout & launch.

I’m looking forward to hearing more about MDP when MySpace Big Kahunas Amit Kapur (COO) and Jim Benedetto (VP Technology) give their keynote talks at Graphing Social Patterns in San Diego, March 3-4. Amit will be speaking about the business & marketing opportunities on the MySpace platform, and Jim will give a technical overview of MDP.

As we’ve already noted, MySpace plans to hold a meeting for developers interested in building applications for the No. 1 social network. MySpace CTO Aber Whitcomb told us the company expects about 250 developers to show up to learn about the new development platform.

GigaOM: How will the development process work?

Whitcomb: After the meeting tomorrow night all developers will have a month to build and test their applications using the APIs. We will make our internal developers accessible through blogs, forums and maybe even IM. End users should expect to see applications in about a month.

Q: How does this relate to OpenSocial?

A: As you know, we worked with Google to develop OpenSocial, so the platform is made up of three APIs — primarily Open Social and extensions we’ve added to make applications standardize inside MySpace, access friends lists and get data that’s available on public profiles if users gave permission to share that data.

Q: How will developers monetize the apps created for MySpace?

A: There are five places an end user might see an application: Each application will have its own profile page; it can be seen on a user’s home page; a user can see the application on a page that controls their own profile; in a widget gallery; and on a canvas page, which is the primary place to control an application. MySpace hosts the canvas page, and that’s where developers will have the opportunity to monetize their widgets. Users won’t see the canvas page until they install the apps, and the advertising will have to follow a few basic guidelines such as not including copyrighted material, offering illegal services, etc.