Bebo, the third-largest social networking site in the US, yesterday dealt a blow to Google's ambitions in the sector by adopting Facebook's open standards for applications.

Bebo, founded by Michael and Xochi Birch, said it had made its platform compatible with Facebook's. This will allow developers to make applications, such as movie ratings and photo-sharing tools, work on both sites with the minimum of alterations. Bebo members could also interact and play games with Facebook users.