On Saturday May 30 in San Francsico, we announced the MySpaceID WordPress Plugin at WordCamp SF 2009.  Interest was so overwhelming that we ran out of flyers to hand out!

For those people who want more information, the plugin is available at:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-myspaceid/

Documentation on how to install it can be found at:
http://wiki.developer.myspace.com/index.php?title=MySpaceID_WordPress_Plug-in_Setup

What is the MySpaceID WordPress plugin?

If you have a self-hosted WordPress blog, the MySpaceID WordPress plugin lets your users log in with their MySpace credentials to leave comments.  This brings a few advantages:

1. Rather than leave comments anonymously, your users can now easily log in with their MySpace credentials in as little as 2 clicks and have their MySpace user name, picture and link automatically show up in the comment. Many users care about letting others find out more about them, and this is a really convenient way to do that, while boosting social engagement on your site.
2. After a user logs in, a cool-looking but unobtrusive bar appears across the bottom of the page. It lets the user share your blog with his friends simply by updating his status on MySpace.
3. The above status update contains a link to your blog, so that it drives traffic to your site (free marketing!), plus improves your PageRank.

How awesome is that?  In addition, the following features are coming soon:

1. When a user posts a comment, he can optionally share that with his friends as an activity on MySpace.
2. When you post a new blog entry, you can share it with your friends as an activity on MySpace.

This is the first release of this plugin, and as it undergoes several iterations in the coming months, we want to improve it with your input. Please make sure to post your suggestions and comments to our MySpaceID forum at http://developer.myspace.com/Community/forums/60.aspx.

We are really excited to be working with the WordPress community on a plugin that is a win-win for all.  Currently, our plugin works only with self-hosted WordPress installations.  If you have such an installation, make sure you install it and try it out!

Thanks to our developers who built this plugin: Chris Baker (www.myspace.com/christopherbbaker) and Steve Ng (www.myspace.com/stevenng, Twitter: @stevenng)!