ReadWriteWeb

MyBlogLog is a powerful application for learning more about any blog's readership but with the release of an API last month, we knew this Yahoo! owned service was only going to get cooler. Kent Brewster at Yahoo! has hit a home run with BlogJuice, a javascript bookmarklet that uses MyBlogLog and YahooPipes to quickly display any information available on other sites about recent readers of a blog you're visiting.

I regularly check the MyBlogLog widget on a new blog I discover to see if I recognize the faces of other recent readers, as a way to get a feel for the site's community. BlogJuice takes that practice and amplifies its usefulness by orders of magnitude.

If you could capture and use the names, ages, genders and demonstrated interests of the specific people who visited your website - would you? A whole lot of people providing services online would. While we've covered the movement for standards-based Data Portability a lot here lately, the newly announced MyBlogLog API is an alternative path to similar ends being taken by a proprietary company. Announced last week just before the Yahoo! OpenID announcement, the MyBlogLog API could end up being of even greater importance. Really.