The Internet is like the drug trade – the more accessible suppliers make a product, the more users/buyers they will have, and the more buyers they have, the more addicts there are in the world. Google and MySpace have officially joined forces to make designing, delivering, and using applications on social networking sites easier than ever, with the hopes that a wide range of products and ease of use will keep their users online and in front of advertisements longer than ever.

According to Mashable.com teenagers make up 12 percent of MySpace users but a much greater percentage of other social networking sites stand to benefit from the Google/MySpace partnership.

“This is really the next step in the evolution of the Web,” says Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Google’s new OpenSocial alliance encourages web developers to create software applications based on a Google standard that can run on many social networking sites so that developers only need to develop a product once, instead of developing the same product multiple times for different applications platforms.

“It just makes sense that a small application developer should only have to develop once, as opposed to creating it over and over, for several different platforms,” DeWolfe said. 

Google’s motive in new initiatives like this is to see more of its ads on the Internet. However, Schmidt said the OpenSocial project isn’t about expanding its ad base by putting ads into the widgets, but about “more people using the Internet for longer periods of time.” If people spend more time on MySpace because of the applications, he said, they’re likely to be exposed to more Google ads.

How many hours per week on average do your students spend online?

How can congregations and parents help students keep their online usage at a healthy balance despite the best efforts to increase usage and sales by Internet companies?