If you’ve come to the site and happen to be a MyBlogLog user, you’ll notice that we just integrated the MyBlogLog API into the service. What this means is that we can recognize public MyBlogLog users and if that’s you, it’s even easier to join. But that’s just the first benefit of our ability to tap into this really great pool of data.

We can also recognize MyBlogLog recent readers, and with the API, those readers now get a “reader profile” on our site, with your profile info from your MyBlogLog account, even your contact list. Here’s where it gets even more fun. If a MyBlogLog reader profile has feeds for Flickr, Yelp, Upcoming, or Last.fm, you or members can view those feeds and import the feed items as “things”. It is a nice way to add more things, and to find out what you have in common with other users.

As an example, I was browsing profiles and came to Jeff Clavier’s reader profile. I click on “import photos” for the Flickr feed, and see that he took a picture of a Search Sig meetup I attended. Although we haven’t met, he’s connected to a few of my contacts, and I just found something we have in common. Cool! I can add him to my contacts on MyBlogLog, and maybe we’ll connect on Thingfo.

Note that not all the MyBlogLog profiles have feeds attached, and we are working to connect the data from their API to our service more deeply.  Despite this lack of perfection, the new open-ness coming to social networks is really exciting.  It’s going to make it easier to connect and share data across sites, and this is just one small example of what we’ll be able to do. Check it out, and please let us know of any ideas or requests related to this new feature and the ability to look at content from relevant feeds.

We’ve also made a few other changes, all to make the service easier to use: for example, we simplified forms for adding comments and experiences to things.  Also, if you’ve activated Twitter integration, you can now control what you send to Twitter on a per-post basis.   These were both requests from our early users, and they definitely help the site… so thank you, enjoy the new MyBlogLog integration, and please keep the feedback coming!