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MySpace Group Architect Monica Keller is leaving for Facebook. She was a key employee for MySpace in advancing MySpace’s initiatives in activity streams and openness. In a blog post by Keller, we were confirmed. She will be joining Facebook as an Open Source and Web Standards Program Manager. There she will get David Recordon and Luke Shepard to work with. MySpace also confirmed about the resignation of Monica Keller.

Keller played a key role in launching MySpace’s Real-Time Stream API, helping to design the Real Time Stream using PuSH and architecting the network’s Twitter Sync Ingest. Keller was involved with the technical aspects of the Stream, and was also involved with the design of MySpace’s developer platform. She’s also represented MySpace on numerous conference panels.

While Keller has some nice things to say about the struggling company in her post, she clearly wasn’t pleased with the way some things were handled at MySpace:

You may be surprised since I have been doing a series of conferences. As Group Architect I was able to not only work with the Activity Stream team but also on the Developer Platform with the backing of the COO, I was able to have my ideas heard and executed. It was these projects which provided massive openness of the user’s MySpace data via Open Standards like OpenID, oAuth, ActivityStrea.ms and PubSubHubbub that filled me with joy because of all the possibilities we provided for other people to be creative.

But I have chosen to leave. While I was able to have some temporary creative freedom this is not the norm or part of what other engineers enjoy and I do not feel there is one cohesive push to deliver the best we can deliver anymore.

To my friends and colleagues at MySpace, some parting advice:
It is imperative that MySpace puts in place strong technical leadership who can attract good technical talent and make well-informed decisions. It is important that they stay connected to rest of the world and work on interoperable standards and solid products which benefit the end user. Many of my fellow engineers have fantastic ideas and a plan for phased delivery.

I wish them the best of luck and I am sure we will cross paths and work together.

This is a loss for MySpace, but it certainly isn’t the end of their real-time and open initiatives.

Source: TechCrunch, Monica Blog