Guest post by Emerge Digital President Dave Albert

As someone who’s fascinated by the Social Networking Application phenomena and the insane success of the Facebook Platform, I paid close attention when MySpace announced they would be opening up their platform in May.

We were also fortunate enough to land a client project developing a MySpace application, which helped justify getting our hands dirty in their beta environment (more on that once we launch). Being a completely new platform (despite being based on Open Social), I have to share it’s been a challenge. Trying to avoid speaking in what my wife calls "Moon Man Talk", the API is still underdeveloped, and My Space is built on a hodge-podge of server-side technology. Many of the functions in the API are labeled "coming soon." In addition, you can’t achieve nearly as much social connectivity as you would within Facebook. In short, it’s been a struggle compared to the slick Facebook environment.

Despite this, it’s way too soon to count MySpace out with some 2,200 published applications, and top applications garnering about 6 million installs.

I have to commend My Space on drawing clear attention the ability to add applications in account profiles, and their application browsing and selection is laid out pretty cleanly. I also like that they show you when the application was added, and how many total installs it has vs. Facebook’s "Active Daily Users." (Which many people commend as a measurement statistic–as a marketer, I personally despise it, because it doesn’t give a true representation on how well an application has spread virally. Facebook also doesn’t put the "Date Added" when browsing, so if an application was just added and has say only 2 active daily users, people will see that and conclude the app must suck).

While in many ways MySpace has emulated Facebook’s layout and implementation of third-party applications (and attracted a lot of the same developers), I’m curious about their "Sponsored and Featured Applications" prominently displayed when browsing apps, which is similar to Facebook’s "Apps You May Like." While Facebook may be taking money to feature these applications (I have no idea if they are) it’s interesting MySpace clearly identifies you can buy into this highly-viewed spot. (I’d love to see comments if anyone knows more about this).

Undoubtedly Facebook will remain the premiere place to publish third-party applications. However, with over 30,000 Facebook applications (vs. MySpace’s current 2,200) creating an increasingly crowded battlefield for attention, MySpace is really a new frontier. My humble opinion, but with similar numbers of accounts and page views, if you’re looking to capitalize on the Social Networking App phenomena, you really can’t overlook MySpace.

Related posts:

1. What is MySpace Good For Anymore?
2. MySpace: Promote, Facebook: Friends, Twitter: People
3. Facebook Apps: the new Magazines?
4. Social Media User Experience: Is it the Contrast?