A few months ago I wrote a blog post entitled What Blog Posting APIs are supported by MSN Spaces? which explained the various options we saw in providing an API that would allow desktop tools and web applications interact with MSN Spaces programmatically. Since I wrote that post I've had a number of people inquire about when we'd provide an API and what form the API will take.

Our current plan is to provide an implementation of the MetaWeblog API with some methods from the Blogger API while using HTTPS/SSL for security. These APIs are widely supported by various weblog applications and already have a vibrant developer ecosystem around them. The API will enable people to create, edit and delete posts on the blog in their space. One of our goals is to ensure that bloggers who are already using blog posting tools such Blogjet or w.bloggar can use them to interact with MSN Spaces when we launch the API without having to upgrade or switch clients. Similarly web sites which allow users to post to their blogs such as Flickr and Zoto should be able to support our API without making significant changes.

The launch date of the API is yet to be determined but will be in the near future. In the meantime, we'd like to get developers of blog posting tools and web applications that would like to integrate with MSN Spaces into a beta program to test our implementation of these APIs. If you are a developer of a blog posting tool or web application that wants to use our API and don't mind signing an NDA then you should send me mail at dareoATmicrosoftDOTcom to get into our beta program.  

If you are interested in us providing other APIs, such as allowing programmatic access to the photo albums or the various lists on a space, I'd also like to hear from you. Please send me mail about your scenario and what platform/device your application will be running on.