MySpace on Thursday raised the stakes in the battle to blunt Facebook, its fast-growing social networking rival, as it joined a Google-led alliance intended to make it easier for web developers to create features that work across a wide variety of social networks.

With rival networking site Bebo also joining the alliance, which was first announced by Google and a handful of smaller players on Wednesday, the new grouping claimed members that have more than 200m internet users between them, compared to the 51m users of Facebook.