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OpenSocial was launched by Google last summer, in a bid to help developers create applications across multiple social networking sites.

Now the trio has created a non-profit foundation that provides a "formal intellectual property and governance framework" for OpenSocial apps. The foundation will become effective from 1 July, although it already has a basic website up and running at Opensocial.org.

"Yahoo believes

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in supporting community-driven industry specifications and expects that OpenSocial will fuel innovation and make the web more relevant and more enjoyable to millions of users," claims Wade Chambers, vice president of platforms at Yahoo. "Our support builds on similar efforts with the OpenID community and will expand the opportunity for developers and publishers to benefit from an open and increasingly social web."

OpenSocial could of course indirectly benefit from Microsoft's backing too, if the company is successful in its takeover of Yahoo.

The elephant not in the room, however, is Facebook. The social networking site of the moment has refused to participate in OpenSocial so far, and this latest initiative hasn't changed its mind. "As the largest contributor to the memecached system, Facebook has long been a leader and supporter of open source initiatives but will not join the foundation," it claims in a statement.

"The company will continue to evaluate partnership opportunities that will benefit the 300,000 Facebook Platform developers while improving the Facebook user experience."