The other day, I felt a disturbance in the Force. After some Web browsing, I found out why. Facebook and MySpace, two giant social networking sites known for locking horns and struggling in an arduous battle over the last several years, may form an alliance. It’s almost like Coke and Pepsi decided to get together to produce a soft drink. I’d like to suggest a name for this mythical drink: Copsi.

But back to the story. MySpace launched in January 2004, and Facebook hit the scene one month later. But MySpace had an open admission policy — Facebook restricted its membership to college students. Gradually, Facebook opened up the doors to a wider audience.

While MySpace had more active members for the first few years of competition with Facebook, eventually the tides turned and Facebook became the more popular site. Now it looks like MySpace may acknowledge that Facebook is the champion in the social networking site war.  The proposed partnership would allow members to share music and videos from MySpace over the Facebook network. In other words, Facebook would become the social networking platform and MySpace would become a content provider. In addition, MySpace members would be able to link their profiles to Facebook using the Facebook Connect service.

The partnership isn’t official yet. I think the arrangement makes sense — I’ve come to prefer Facebook’s layout for social networking, but MySpace is still a great place to discover new bands, listen to music or watch videos. On Facebook, it’s too easy for links to music or videos to scroll off your feed before you get a chance to see them. Linking the two together could create a rich user experience if executed correctly.

I’m still shaken by the announcement. I never expected to see Facebook and MySpace work together. What’s next? Are the two Steves (Ballmer and Jobs) destined to share an ice cream sundae?

Learn more about social networking sites at HowStuffWorks.com:

How Facebook Works
How MySpace Works
How Online Social Networks Work