ReadWriteWeb

Later today, Digg will open up its rumored read/write API. Up until now, developers could only read data from Digg. With the new API, web and desktop apps will also be able to contribute data to Digg. This will allow developers to write desktop and web applications that enable users to, for example, interact with Digg without having to go to the site. Digg will use the OAuth protocol to authorize applications. According to Forbes' Taylor Buley, however, the writable API will not allow users to submit stories remotely.

Facebook just announced that it has released Tornado, the real-time web framework that powers FriendFeed, as open source code. According to Facebook's David Recordon, Tornado is one of the core infrastructure pieces that power FriendFeed's real-time functionality. The framework, according to Recordon, is similar to other Python frameworks like Google's webapp or web.py, but is faster and able to handle more simultaneous traffic than its competitors. On his personal blog, Bret Taylor, one of the co-founders of FriendFeed, explains the technical details behind Tornado in more detail.