You've probably noticed lots of changes on MDP in the last week or so. I want to quickly highlight and explain these changes and how they fit with our ongoing plans for MDP.

"Post To" capabilities

The most significant change last week was the addition of messaging and posting functionality that we call "Post To". In brief, Post To enables your apps to provide content to users -- anything from text, to markup, to media -- and allows them to post it in a bulletin or blog, save it to their own profile, or send it to a friend in a MySpace message or comment. Here's a great blog post by Donny Mack from our Seattle team that explains this new functionality in detail:  introducing Post To

We have two main goals with Post To: give MySpace users more ways to connect and express themselves, and give developers more ways to spread the word about your apps. We think these goals are directly aligned, and here's why. The best way for your apps to grow in popularity is by really engaging users and providing them with cool content that they also want their friends to see. Post To lets you do so using the tools that MySpace members are already familiar with. Now you can let your users brag about their high scores in a bulletin post or challenge a friend to beat that score in a message. But remember that MySpace is all about profiles and self-expression, so I encourage you to provide your users with cool stuff to post in their blogs and profiles or to drop in a comment . . . those are great ways for your apps to spread.

We've already gotten a lot of good questions/feedback about Post To, and we will be getting back with more specific info on questions like using Post To from the RESTful API and on the profile and UHP views. I'd like to quickly address one issue, though, which is whether we will allow messaging/posting to multiple recipients. Firstly, Post To does support MySpace bulletins, which is a great way to let users "broadcast" a message about your app. Messages, however, can only be sent to one user at a time on MySpace. We are looking at allowing multiple message recipients in the future, but need to strike a balance between convenience and flooding inboxes. We are also developing new app-specific messaging capabilities - more on that in coming weeks.

Applications Module on UHP

Have you noticed more users installing your apps? Another change last week was that the "Applications" module on Users' Home Pages now appears for ALL users. Previously, it had only appeared after a user installed an app. Here's how the module looks for users who don't have any apps:

You might not think such a small module would drive a lot of traffic, but that's the power of MySpace! We've already seen a large increase in views and installs in the gallery, and this is just another step in the increasing visibility of the Apps platform on MySpace.

Default sorts in the Apps Gallery

The final big change we made last week was that we modified the default sort/view in the Apps Gallery from most installs to most recent submissions. We did this for a couple of reasons. First, we wanted to give MySpace users more variety in the apps they see when the come to the gallery. Second, we wanted to give newer apps more exposure and opportunities, which is definitely part of our mission to ensure that MDP provides a level playing field for all developers.

We will likely be changing the default sorts frequently as we roll out new sorts and views on the gallery - some in the coming weeks! Stay tuned for continued updates.

/Kyle