MySpace has launched a developercontest to find new developers to write compelling applications on the popular MySpace social networking platform.

In a Jan. 4 blog post, Amy Walgenbach, a spokesperson for MySpace, called on developers to join in the competition to build innovative MySpace applicationsand spelled out the rules and regulations for the contest, which offers cash prizes of $10,000 to winners in each of five categories.

"We believe the best on-site and off-site integrations with MySpace are not here yet and the MySpace Developer Challenge intends to find them," Walgenbach wrote. "We also want to reward innovative developers big and small and recognize them as much as we can."

Regarding the time frame and other general rules of the MySpace Developer Challenge, Walgenbach said:

"Developers can participate by creating a new MySpace application or integrating our APIs on their website. The Challenge will feature monetary and promotional prizes, to be given out to those developers whose submissions are picked by a panel of judges. There is a two-month submission window, culminating in winners announced at the Games Developer Conference in San Francisco in March 2010. Submissions for the Challenge will be accepted from January 4 through Feb 28, 2010, and the most promising entries will be recognized in March."

The contest features five categories: Most Innovative Use of the Real-Time Stream API, Best MySpace App, Most Innovative Use of the Open Search API, Most Innovative MySpace Integration on Mobile, and Most Innovative Use of Photos.

Shedding more light on the MySpace Real-Time Stream API, Walgenbach said:

"·   MySpace's Real-Time Stream API allows the full MySpace activity stream to be pushed to your site in real-time. The API includes granular filters to control the amount of data seen. Show us your best integration of this API on your site and enter for a chance to win.

·   To spur some ideas, check out these examples by OneRiot, who launched their real-time search integration; Groovy Corporation, who included MySpace in their massively parallel processing technology; and Google will be leveraging our data in their Google Real-Time Search shortly. Also, check out our own internally built demo of our Real-Time Stream API."

Moreover, she wrote, MySpace's Open Search API enables Websites to "include public MySpace profile information in search results" so "users can search for people by name, profile type ... or e-mail address and filter search results by gender, age and location."

Also, Walgenbach said, "We're accepting submissions for mobile apps that either leverage our iPhone SDK [software development kit] for integration into existing apps and games or create a stand-alone MySpace application that surprises us with your creative use of our APIs, for any mobile platform. Think big or focus on a core feature—the goal is to enhance or reinvent a mobile MySpace experience."

The judges for the MySpace Developer Challenge will be MySpace Chief Operating Officer Mike Jones; Ron Conway, founder and managing partner of Angel Investors; David Glazer, engineering director at Google; and Robert Scoble, a prominent technology blogger and evangelist.

Meanwhile, in a separate MySpace post, Ravi Srivatsav Krishnamurthy, director of the MySpace Open Platform at Fox Interactive Media, in Beverly Hills, Calif., said MySpace will hold a MySpace DevJam developer event in San Francisco on Jan. 14.

Of the DevJam, Krishnamurthy said:

"This MySpace devJam is a great way to turn the ideas you've been thinking about into something real and live on the site. The objective is to create something interesting, preferably that you can enter in our developer contest—the MySpace Developer Challenge—by the end of the day. We'll have coding sessions for each contest category and give you an update on new APIs. It's also a chance to get feedback from your peers and help from the MySpace Developer team."