Yahoo, MySpace, and Google have announced they have agreed to form the OpenSocial Foundation in order to "ensure the neutrality and longevity of OpenSocial as an open, community-governed specification for building social applications across the web".

OpenSocial, launched by Google last year, is a common set of APIs for applications across multiple websites that will allow for cross-platform widgets.

The companies say that 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.

This move could be seen to put pressure on non-members, such as Microsoft and Facebook, to sign up.

The OpenSocial Foundation will be an independent non-profit entity that will be in place by 1 July 2008.

>> News - MySpace joins OpenSocial