Adding Google as a friend

After announcing plans to implement a standard programming interface for building social apps online, Google has recruited MySpace to join the OpenSocial fold.

Mashable claims the two have been secretly working on the project all along.

OpenSocial's API standards are designed to evolve with contribution from the open source community, and as new features are developed by its partners.

MySpace joins Engage.com, Friendster, hi5, Hyves, imeem, LinkedIn, Ning, Oracle, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, and XING as founding partners in OpenSocial.

Despite Google's assertion that it would be happy to work with Facebook, Fortune divulges that the popular social networking site was not invited to the OpenSocial party.

Meanwhile, a Hitwise graph shows the overall traffic market share of the OpenSocial collective to be more than five times greater than Facebook.

But it may not be TKO just yet. In mid-October, Facebook released a cryptic invitation for the unveiling of a new ad platform this November 6th. According to John Battelle, it's a contender for AdWords.

Last week, Google lost out to Microsoft in a bidding round for Facebook, driving the value of the site to $15 billion.