Yahoo may seem like it’s in a death spiral, but that has not stopped the developers from doing their work. Today we saw the announcement of the Yahoo! Music API.

The API is a fairly complete offering, giving developers lots of access to various parts of Yahoo’s catalog as well as user recommendations and ratings. As an example of what can be done with the new API, Yahoo points to their music video application on Facebook, which has been up and running since last year.

As a developer, the first question seems to be what data formats are available. Obviously, Yahoo is listening to the developer community because the API offers XML, JSON and RSS formats. There is also extensive API documentation in the API Guide. Most importantly, what does the API give you and what makes it better than the others?

The API is broken into 9 services and the video player API. The video player API allows you to embed the Yahoo! Music Videos Flash Player to quickly play any videos found through the API services.

The only initial concern with the API is that any service calls for ratings or recommendations require the use of BBAuth, a Yahoo-specific authentication mechanism. Otherwise, there is a lot you can do with these services, including:

* Artist Service

* Category Service

* Image Service

* Rating Service

* Release Service

* Station Service

* Track Service

* User Service

* Video Service

Each of the services has several options as well. For example, the Artist Service allows you to retrieve information for a specific artist by ID. There are also services for retrieving the list of popular artists and the artists within a specific category. As expected, several of the services have a search method when you do not know the ID of the item you would like to retrieve.

How does the API compare to other API offerings from Yahoo Music competitors? Imeem has an API that is geared towards how the site is used, allowing you to get information about your playlists, your friends and groups as well as some basic catalog information. Last.fm has an API that has been around for quite some time at AudioScrobbler.net. Most of the Last.fm API pertains to your profile, tags and recent activity. Given that both Imeem and Last.fm have a heavy social component, they are significantly better for finding recommendations from your “friends”. However, given the breadth of the services available, especially for standard catalog information, Yahoo’s API looks like a formidable competitor.

One important addition to all of this is Yahoo’s terms of service. You are limited to 5000 requests per day, which should be fine for a simple mashup as long as you do not get much traffic.

As expected, you are not allowed to use the API for commercial purposes, but you may contact Yahoo for permission. This is not any different from many other music APIs, so that is no surprise. Oddly enough, there is one item that needs to be highlighted:

You shall not use the Yahoo! Music APIs in a product or service that competes with products or services offered by Yahoo!

I can understand the point of this, but it seems a little heavy handed. If they are afraid of someone having a competing service that is better, make a service that is better than theirs.

Overall, I love the functionality that the Music API is offering. It is very detailed and provides several ways to get information. If I was a mashup developer, I would be concerned about the terms of service because they are not friendly in any way. Given the current state that Yahoo is in, I do not think they would try to shut down a decent service because it competed with theirs. They would not want the PR nightmare that would follow. Hopefully, people will find interesting uses for the API because you do not see APIs this solid every day.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Yahoo Musicmatch Jukebox Closing, to the Dismay of UsersYahoo Media Player Now Plays Music From Your SiteYahoo Series Moving to MTV Next WeekYahoo Kills Yahoo Music Unlimited, Signs Deal With RhapsodySony BMG And Yahoo Sign Music and Video DealYahoo Announces Changes in Entertainment DivisionFacebook App: Yahoo Music Videos

When the CEO one of the most followed companies on the Web goes on stage for two hours, you can bet that the press will be listening to every word, looking to break a major piece of news for their respective organization. But yesterday, with Mark Zuckerberg on stage at F8, why did we all (including us) feel so compelled to “live blog” the event, given it was being broadcast live on video – quite publicly - via Facebook’s own web site? In retrospect, it seems rather ridiculous.

While plenty of big news came out of the event – the launch of Facebook Connect, Facebook Translations for Developers, and the Great Apps program, just to name a few things – it seems like those who cared enough to get these announcements “live” were most likely either in attendance or watching the video stream. Beyond that, if people wanted to discuss the announcements, Twitter or Friendfeed offered a perfect medium. This is all besides the fact that the press release itemizing Facebook’s major product launches was distributed to the media moments after Zuckerberg took the stage, leading us (and a number of other tech blogs) to publish stories detailing the news before Facebook even got to that part of their presentation.

Liveblogging certainly has its place, especially for events where not everyone has access. But what are we gaining by liveblogging something that everyone else can see? And it’s not just keynote speeches at conferences either – blogs now routinely liveblog conference calls, press conferences, and other events that anyone can tune into, usually by going to a company’s investor relations or press page. While news does often break during these events, the people who really care are already tuned in, while the few people reading the liveblog have to sort through paragraph upon paragraph of unimportant notes to find the one piece of potentially breaking news.

Beyond the overkill of liveblogging public events, I also don’t see what good it does from a business perspective as a publisher either. Versus listening to an event or a conference call and making a post detailing the news when it’s over, a liveblog usually offers a boring headline (“Live: F8 Keynote with Mark Zuckerberg”), is very difficult to read, and has minimal long-term value. Compared to a post where you cover and analyze the news, write a headline that articulates what the story is about, and create long-term value in terms of content that is indexable and can be backlinked, liveblogging just doesn’t make sense.

Proponents of liveblogging such events would likely argue that it offers not only breaking news, but instant insight into the event from the perspective of someone in attendance. While that is true to some extent, there is a ton more insight taking place elsewhere, via discussions on services like Twitter and Friendfeed.

I’m sure we’ll continue to liveblog events here on Mashable, and I’m sure others will continue to do so as well. I’m just not sure why.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Windows Live Installer Launches this WeekXanga Clones Justin.TVXanga Adds Live Stream Webcams to Blog PlatformRevver Plug-in for WordpressCoverItLive’s Interactive Widget for BloggersCoverItLive Now Lets You Add Qik Mobile Video to Your Live BlogsBliin Is GPS-based Live Blogging

Source:Mashable!

In the past few weeks Plurk has released a number of updates in preparation for its upcoming API launch. Improvements include, a new customizable sidebar widget, new starter verbs such as “wonders” and “needs,” a cleaner “All Plurks,” and “My Plurks” navigation, along with a custom search feature. Plurk has even enhanced their competitive ranking system, also known as “Karma” to make the algorithm more fair and balanced.

Another feature that Plurk recently implemented that reminds me of the unofficial Twitter extended backgrounds is the ability to customize everything on your profile via CSS if your Karma is over 25. Customizing your profile background is something that some Twitter users, myself included, have wanted to see, but after seeing a few backgrounds and profiles in Plurk, I’m not so sure. Take a look below:

Plurk fail whale:

Animated gator background:

I’m not saying they’re bad - I’ll let you be the judge of that. But customizing backgrounds should be an enhancement and not a distraction to users, especially since many Plurk users are waiting for desktop integration such as Plurker, a Windows WPF desktop application or twhirl.

For those of us who Plurk on a regular basis I would say that we’re satisfied with the service’s development and features — and just this week Plurk was added to the list of supported sites on FriendFeed. However, Plurk’s community and conversations still remain a question. Currently from the twitter/tech/blog community, Darren Rowse of Problogger and Majo of Live Crunch are making headway up the interesting plurkers karma list. But still, without an API, no desktop application, and some of the most popular topics on Plurk being “good morning,” “good night,” “hi,” “sex” and “coffee,” it will be interesting to see what audience Plurk continues to build.

Is Plurk the MySpace or Facebook of micro-blogging? Only time will tell.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:I Like Plurk Better Than Twitter, But Should I Even Bother?Three Very Important Plurk StatisticsPlurk Set To Release API But Remains the Underdog in the Race Against TwitterPlurkmania Brings You All the Plurk Stats You Can EatZannel Raises $10M to Take On Twitter with Mobile Multimedia ServiceSeesmic Acquires Twhirl, for Desktop Video MicrobloggingIdenti.ca: The Force is Strong with This One (But is no Jedi, Yet)

When you join together the terms “online” and “whiteboard,” you probably conjure an image of some super-simple utility that allows one or more persons to share ideas. Companies like 37signals and Stixy offer such services. Yet they don’t take literally to the concept. Sure, they let users toss up text and files and so forth. But they don’t offer spaces totally open to a myriad of inputs, including free-form drawing and line figures and so forth. Scriblink appears unique in that respect.

We first introduced Scriblink to you about ten months ago, and while its basic presentation is the same as it was originally, it’s been refined into a more user-friendly device, and there are some new features that might catch your attention.

For starters, Scriblink’s toolkit is now displayed entirely openly. All components are positioned around the top and right borders of the main window, which you can use to specify your input type, color palette, etc. Everything seems easy to understand, and putting the board to use takes no time at all. Want text? Click the corresponding icon, find a suitable place on the screen, and write as you wish. You can even display a grid overlay if you like to keep things as organized as possible. An arrow button to adjacent to the ‘Clear’ option allows you to expand the size of the board if the default space proves too small.

As was the case months ago, there is no registration necessary to get started with the basic Scriblink device, and with it you can do things like chat with collaborators, send files and enable a conference call. However, one recently upgrade not seen before is a new Business Solutions dimension. This allows small businesses to gain access to an API and create customized whiteboards with company logos and so forth. “SBS,” for short, the new option allows three different levels of group whiteboard use, segmented with Silver ($9/month), Gold ($19/mo), and Platinum ($29/mo) designations.

As one would expect, all options are open for use on-demand. But they differ in two areas: users and time allotments. The Silver plan provided access for 6 simultaneous users, while Gold and Platinum allow for 8 and 10, respectively. As for usage permissions, Scriblink separates the plans with different bandwidth allotments: Silver, 25 hours; Gold, 100; Platinum, 200.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Scriblink’s Extra Basic Whiteboard ToolFacebook and Visa Team Up to Target Small BusinessesIdeablob is a Place to Grow Your IdeasSmall World Labs Gets $1M to Compete with KickApps, et al.MerchantCircle Receives $10 Million in FundingCoghead Offers Business Apps VerticalsCNNMoney Shifts Focus To Online Video

AOL is announcing the launch of their Open Voice API today. The Open Voice API will work with the AIM Call Out service which allows users of AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) to call out worldwide. I guess AIM Call Out could be considered a Skype competitor though it’s not as feature rich or as polished an application.

The new API will allow developers to create applications that build on the AIM Call Out functionality and use devices including softphones and mobile devices with WiFi capabilities. Steve Murphy, Senior Vice President, AOL said, "We’re building on the popularity of the Open AIM program and opening up the AIM Call Out platform, enabling open standards voice communication services to proliferate in the marketplace." Check out the developer guidelines for the API.

Both AOL Call Out and Skype’s "Skype Out" service charge per minute and offer monthly unlimited plans. 

Video hosting service Viddler is out today with a new Facebook application which I have to admit is pretty damn slick. It replicates the majority of functionality from Viddler.com into Facebook. Viddler’s lead social developer Kyle Slattery was the man behind the application. The app uses Viddler’s new open API and is a great way to show off the power of their API. There’s no poking here!

The Viddler Facebook app shows your videos plus the latest videos from Viddler and the daily highlighted videos. It appears to handle widescreen videos as well. Developer evangelist Colin Devroe tells me that soon search functionality will be added. You can also add videos into Viddler directly from inside Facebook.

The only weird things I’ve noticed so far are:

• while you can view both Facebook comments and Viddler comments, if you comment on the Facebook application, the comments go to the Facebook side. I’d like to see these integrated somehow - you know how I feel about comments all over the place!
• when the first video ends and you navigate inside the video — the page doesn’t update which could cause some weirdness when you try to comment and it ends up on another video incorrectly.

If