MySpace chats up the Widget Channel

We've heard a bit now about the Widget Channel, the partnership between Intel and Yahoo designed to bring web functions like photo sharing and stock prices to living-room TV sets.

MySpace's sidebar slides out on the screen of a Widget Channel-compatible TV. (Credit: MySpace)

Well, MySpace is one of the partners on board: the News Corp-owned social network has created a "widget for TV" that lets its members access a variety of features from Widget Channel-compatible TVs.

Basically, this means that you can install a MySpace widget in the Widget Channel "dock", and expand it in order to access profiles, status updates, in-box messages and other site features. The widget was created, MySpace said, with the MySpaceID project that sprung out of its Data Availability initiative late last year.

So it's more or less MySpace on your TV. But that makes sense — with competitor Facebook having more or less made it the best it can be on the networking front, MySpace has begun to establish itself more as a media portal. The TV widget could potentially make for some cool developments in the future. MySpace Music playlists, for example, could make a nice addition to the home entertainment centre.

And MySpace hopes this will only be the start of further off-the-PC endeavours. A release on Wednesday hinted at a future presence on devices like DVD players and set-top boxes. And MySpace has also been ramping up its mobile offerings — the last development, which we heard about a month ago, was streaming video.