Never mind the tactics of Facebook, Google, and other popular online companies; with its latest appeal to developers, MySpace appears to have taken a (good) page out of the AARP’s playbook. The social network has brokered deals with a number of companies so that developers can save money on products and services by teaming up with it.
This isn’t quite the same thing as a discount on a cruise or a free dessert at a nice restaurant; MySpace is trying to keep developers working, not make them leave their desks. The key is that MySpace is trying to make developers’ work cheaper and easier.
Developers can now get a year of free hosting and computing resources through Joyent. Or a discount on micro-payment transaction fees thanks to PlaySpan, and a discount on virtual goods payments thanks to Social Gold.
ClickandBuy, meanwhile, is offering developers free merchant accounts, and simplified enrollment into the Microsoft BizSpark Program is also on the table.
Finally, as explained in an official release, "Scoreloop is enabling mobile game developers to link their games directly to the MySpace network via the Scoreloop Core Social SDK for both Android and iPhone." And "Scoreloop is running a contest where 10 of the best iPhone / Android social game integrations with MySpace support will receive 1 million free ad impressions through the MySpace App."
This all comes as part of a new "Developer Services" program at MySpace. The odds seem good that the program will prove popular.
UPDATE: A MySpace representative wrote WebProNews to say, "This program is a part of our effort to provide tools and resources to help developers build engaging, fun, and profitable integrations with MySpace."