Er…I mean the OpenSocial Foundation. This marks Yahoo’s formal joining up. Expect Facebook to join too. Wire coverage.
From a release sent to me by Yahoo:
Yahoo! supports OpenSocial; Yahoo!, MySpace and Google to form non-profit OpenSocial Foundation
Community organization to assure neutrality and longevity of specification for building social applications across the web
SUNNYVALE/LOS ANGELES/MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIF. (March 25, 2008)—Yahoo!, MySpace, and Google today announced they have agreed to form the OpenSocial Foundation to ensure the neutrality and longevity of OpenSocial as an open, community-governed specification for building social applications across the web. Yahoo!’s support of OpenSocial and role as a founding member of the new foundation are landmarks for the rapidly growing specification which will now offer developers the potential to connect with more than 500 million people worldwide.
The OpenSocial Foundation will be an independent non-profit entity with a formal intellectual property and governance framework; related assets will be assigned to the new organization by July 1, 2008. The foundation will provide transparency and operational guidelines around technology, documentation, intellectual property, and other issues related to the evolution of the OpenSocial platform, while also ensuring all stakeholders share influence over its future direction.