To get started, all you need is the code (open sourced under the BSD license), an API key, and the API Docs (you’ll need an MSDN login to access them).

Then, you can follow along with this tutorial written by PHP guru Cal Evans where you can access sample code, too while learning more about Bing’s API. Stay tuned for follow up posts, as well, where he will talk about what possibilities this API access permits. 

This is pretty interesting stuff because it’s entirely unique – no other search engine gives you access to information like this via an API. Now go build something amazing with it!

The new Messenger Connect API lets developers do 3 main things:

1. Create instant user profiles and friend lists. In other words, portable friend lists you can choose to share with websites by signing in.
2. Enable real-time IM on websites plus feed-based sharing options
3. Easily integrate into multiple development environments (an API service exposes a RESTful interface, wrapped in a range of libraries including JavaScript, .NET and others)

For end users

But for consumers, what the Messenger Connect will allow for is the ability to pull together “all of a user’s social networks into one ‘passport’ that they can use around the web,” writes Martin Bryant on The Next Web blog. Yep, that means you can tote around your Facebook identity and others too, all in one package.

“Like the new version of Windows Live Messenger, it supports Facebook, Myspace and LinkedIn but will additionally be supported by over 100 third party partners at launch,” Bryant explains.

While Microsoft claims that the aim is not to compete directly with Facebook’s Open Graph, “we’re not trying to be a social network, we’re trying to be the best companion to social networks…,” Microsoft’s John Richards told TNW, there are some similarities between the two services and how they both let you port your social graph around the web.

However, privacy is being positioned as the biggest difference. The official blog post reads: “…we believe that the privacy of a customers’ data is a critical element of a secure web and the customer should be in control…Websites cannot access any of a user’s non-public information from Windows Live without prior consent…”

Security and privacy, in fact, are listed as “foundational elements” of the new service, which should be a big plus for consumers who want the convenience of a social companion service without the fear of over-sharing.

The new API is part of the next version of Messenger, coming soon and available for preview here: http://www.messengerpreview.com/

OK, so Real Live Search may not be your default engine anytime soon, but it’s definitely a fun experiment to try.

Applications in the Economy category should help people deal with the worsening global economy in some way and the applications in the Ecology category should help improve the ecology of planet Earth. The applications can be either web applications in the traditional sense or they can be “mashups.”

To sign up, just enter your email address on the Will Code for Green site to get started. Winners will be announced at this year’s 2009 Gnomedex technology conference. If you’re in the Seattle area, you can attend a “Will Code for Green” hackathon on June 27th hosted by Microsoft. More details here.