Imeem unveils its social networking API to Web services

Specializing in networking the creative sector -- including artists, musicians, filmmakers, photographers -- imeem opened its API today, allowing developers to take advantage of the site's media library, with OpenSocial support soon to be added.

The imeem Media Platform, as it is called, includes a Web services API and client libraries which give developers access to the site's expansive library of user-uploaded songs, videos, and photos as well as its recommendation engine, social graphs and user profile data. With these, an imeem sandbox environment in which to build and debug applications has also been opened.

Though imeem was a launch partner with Google's OpenSocial in November 2007, this initial API still lacks support for that open platform. OpenSocial is a common set of APIs developed by Google that allows interoperability among social networks supporting them. Sachin Rekhi, the API's product manager, says in his blog that support for the still-new platform will be added "in the coming months."

The list of sites supporting OpenSocial at launch was extensive, featuring partners such as MySpace, PayPal, NY Times, Bebo, and Orkut. Yahoo announced its entry into the OpenSocial collective just this morning.

Client libraries and sample applications are available in the imeem downloads section.