The Rapleaf API, a core component Rapleaf, allows any company or developer to access information on a person and include that in their own site. Such information includes memberships, reputation, and demographic info.

We’re excited to release the Rapleaf Address Book API. It is super easy to use and can help any site increase its reach by allowing users to import their contacts into your site, and further benefit from portable social graphs.

The Address Book API allows you to:

- Ask your users for their email login credentials (for Gmail, Yahoo!, AOL, Hotmail/MSN)

- Securely pass the credentials to the Rapleaf Address Book API

- Obtain the names and email addresses of all the contacts in that person’s address book

It’s all free and really easy to use. User’s privacy is guarded and password information is never stored.

You can find the Address Book API documentation here: http://www.rapleaf.com/apidoc/v2/abook

p.s. - Combine the Address Book API with the Rapleaf Person API to get social network memberships and demographics of each email in that address book.

We recently gathered data and released stats on users of MySpace, LinkedIn, Friendster, Plaxo, and Hi5 – five social networks on the OpenSocial platform. We also gathered data on Facebook users. For instance, did you know:

- The greatest overlap between OpenSocial container sites exists between MySpace and Hi5, in which 43% of Hi5 users also use MySpace.
- Facebook users are 63% female and 36% male whereas the sites integrated with the OpenSocial platform are 61% female and 38% male
- 52% of Facebook users are 18-25, whereas 40% of the users are 18-25 for the five container sites on the OpenSocial platform
- Facebook users tend to use 2.9 major social networking sites on average whereas users of OpenSocial container sites tend to use 2.7 major social networking sites

Full in-depth data below:

Facebook Users
- 2.6 million users identified in Rapleaf
- 63% female, 36% male
- 17% <18 yrs, 52% 18-25 yrs, 21% 26-35 yrs, 5% 36-45 yrs, 5% >45 yrs
- 2.9 major social networking sites used on average
- 62% are on MySpace, 5% are on LinkedIn, 9% are on Friendster, 10% are on Plaxo, 22% are on Hi5

MySpace Users
- 11.3 million users identified in Rapleaf
- 63% female, 36% male
- 20% <18 yrs, 40% 18-25 yrs, 27% 26-35 yrs, 7% 36-45 yrs, 6% >45 yrs
- 2.4 major social networking sites used on average
- 15% are on Facebook, 2% are on LinkedIn, 9% are on Friendster, 6% are on Plaxo, 17% are on Hi5

LinkedIn Users
- 0.8 million users identified in Rapleaf
- 38% female, 61% male
- 2% <18 yrs, 9% 18-25 yrs, 49% 26-35 yrs, 24% 36-45 yrs, 16% >45 yrs
- 3.2 major social networking sites used on average
- 16% are on Facebook, 25% are on MySpace, 12% are on Friendster, 16% are on Plaxo, 8% are on Hi5

Friendster Users
- 2.3 million users identified in Rapleaf
- 58% female, 41% male
- 12% <18 yrs, 39% 18-25 yrs, 36% 26-35 yrs, 7% 36-45 yrs, 5% >45 yrs
- 3.0 major social networking sites used on average
- 10% are on Facebook, 44% are on MySpace, 5% are on LinkedIn, 5% are on Plaxo, 26% are on Hi5

Plaxo Users
- 1.3 million users identified in Rapleaf
- 62% female, 37% male
- 16% <18 yrs, 39% 18-25 yrs, 24% 26-35 yrs, 10% 36-45 yrs, 11% >45 yrs
- 3.6 major social networking sites used on average
- 20% are on Facebook, 53% are on MySpace, 11% are on LinkedIn, 9% are on Friendster, 15% are on Hi5

Hi5 Users
- 4.5 million users identified in Rapleaf
- 60% female, 39% male
- 21% <18 yrs, 44% 18-25 yrs, 23% 26-35 yrs, 6% 36-45 yrs, 6% >45 yrs
- 2.8 major social networking sites used on average
- 13% are on Facebook, 43% are on MySpace, 2% are on LinkedIn, 13% are on Friendster, 2% are on Plaxo

We currently have 60 million people in our databases and we searched those people across publicly accessible social networks, in which much of the data was obtained.

If there or any further inquiries on this data or other data we may have, please contact press@rapleaf.com

Also, developers may check out Rapleaf’s API v2 (for integrating people data into your site): http://www.rapleaf.com/developer

The buzz on the web over the last week has been the release of Google’s OpenSocial. OpenSocial is a mark-up language that developers can use to write applications on a host of sites. Companies that have committed to OpenSocial include MySpace, Bebo, Google, Hi5, Friendster, SixApart, and more.

OpenSocial creates a range of opportunities for companies, developers, and users to benefit from the social power of the web. Companies save resources by not having to code the same app for multiple sites. Users benefit because they can transport data across every site they use. At Rapleaf, we’re excited about OpenSocial and the mission of making data portable.

Our newly released API v2 allows companies and developers to access portable user data – memberships, demographics, and reputation – and import that data for use in their own sites. Any developer can ping our API with an email and we’ll return information on the person, including:

- Memberships: links to their social network profiles (Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc)

- Demographics: name, age, gender, location, and occupation

- Reputation: Rapleaf score and ratings

Site’s are already using this information to benefit their users – pulling in links to their social networks or automatically completing profile info.

As the mission of portable social graphs and identities evolve, we look forward to seeing sites and users benefit from the Rapleaf API and OpenSocial.

You can access the new Rapleaf API docs here