The official news is out on the MySpace and Google deal, first rumored earlier today. The big news: the two companies have actually been working together on OpenSocial all along, which launches tonight. From the jointly issued news release:

MySpace, the world’s largest social network, and Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced that they are joining forces to launch OpenSocial— a set of common APIs for building social applications across the web. The partnership spearheads an initiative to standardize and simplify the development of social applications. Today’s announcement underscores MySpace’s commitment to supporting standards that foster innovation in an increasingly social Web.

Other “founding partners” of the project include: Engage.com, Friendster, hi5, Hyves, imeem, LinkedIn, Ning, Oracle, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, and XING.

While MySpace has been widely criticized in recent months for falling behind Facebook and its much-hyped platform, it looks like the sleeping giant has had something up their sleeve all along. With Google and MySpace leading the OpenSocial initiative, and apparently most all of the second tier social networks on board, MySpace is right back in the social networking driver’s seat.

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