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Editor's note: MyBlogLog API - Q & A with guest blogger Jon Henshaw
Editor's note: Introducing Jon Henshaw, Internet Strategist at Sitening, a Nashville-based Web development and search marketing company, makers of the Raven SEO Tool Set. He's responsible for driving exposure and traffic to his clients' websites via social networks and search engines. He first discovered MyBlogLog last year and has been using it on every blog he manages ever since.

Last month, as soon as he heard about it, Jon signed up for the MyBlogLog API beta. A week ago, we got a tip about this cool WordPress plugin built by the team at Sitening. Please keep in mind that for now these plugins only work if you've got a Yahoo! API key that's been permissioned for the MyBlogLog API beta. If you're interested in trying it out, please apply to the beta at developer.yahoo.com/mybloglog or hang in there just a little longer. The API will be available to everyone in March.

Q: Out of all of the social media APIs that are available, why did you choose to work with the MyBlogLog API?

A: I've always had an affinity for MyBlogLog, because it solves two difficult marketing problems – getting exposure and networking within your niche. Since MyBlogLog already does a good job addressing both of those problems, I was excited when I heard they were coming out with an API and I immediately started thinking about ways we could extend their service.

Q: Is the WordPress plugin the first thing you made with the MyBlogLog API?

A: No, initially we used their API to build some custom pages for our blog. We wanted to implement the API to give us a way to promote and thank our Raven MyBlogLog members. During the process, we wrote our own PHP Wrapper for the MyBlogLog API and turned it into an open source project. The wrapper makes it much easier for PHP developers to quickly build Web applications with the MyBlogLog API. Then we decided to take it further and used our wrapper to create the WordPress plugin.

Q: How does the MyBlogLog WordPress plugin extend or benefit your blog?

A: We believe that Raven's community is essential to the success of our blog. So we used the MyBlogLog WordPress plugin to celebrate and thank the readers and customers who contribute most to the conversation. Our plugin displays a widget with the most active MyBlogLog members, creates a members' list page, and also creates a detailed member profile page. The profile page was especially fun to make, because we took several of the social networks that members belonged to – all stored in their MyBlogLog profile – and retrieved and displayed their recent posts and social bookmarks on it. We also listed their blogs and other related information. So far, the response from our members has been very positive.

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