MySpace,in the spirit of Twitter and other open development sites, announced on
Wednesday that it would be releasing a suite of APIs as a means of
opening up the massive amounts of data available through MySpace.
The
Status and Mood Commenting API allows for easy synchronization of
streams between MySpace and third-party Web sites so that users’
updates fluidly transfer to other sites and fluidly transfer comments
from that site back to the MySpace stream. The Open Search API gives
third-party sites access to an advanced search tool for finding public
profiles. The Photo Upload API and other APIs make sharing content
between MySpace and third-party sites even easier.
One of
the APIs, the Real-Time Stream API, is already in use by Google,
GroovyCorp, and OneRiot, meaning that each of those sites present
MySpace user activity in real-time streams. Google just this week
launched real-time search.
“As we continue looking for new ways to
socialize the growing array of rich, scalable content on MySpace, we
want to also inspire the developer community to continue generating
innovative applications that make it easier to socialize content on and
off our site,” says MySpace COO Mike Jones.
According to MySpace, every day users share over 35 million pieces of content–status updates, music, photos, videos, apps, etc.
Opening
up this huge collection of data through a suite of APIs will certainly
be a boon for third-party sites, but it will also help MySpace extend
its sphere-of-influence. When Google announced that it would be
streaming real-time data in search results, both Twitter and Google
benefit from Twitter’s open API.
To spark innovation and motivation to use these new APIs MySpace has
set up a contest for developers: the most creative use of MySpace API
will win the developer a $50,000 cash prize.
