Introduction

The MetaWeblog API allows applications to manage blog posts on your Ning Network. The API uses the XML-RPC protocol and uses RSS 2.0 as it’s data structure.

The MetaWeblog API is currently implemented by many popular blogging platforms such as WordPress, Movable Type, and Drupal. This means that there are a large number of code libraries that can jump-start your development.

This document serves a reference to the MetaWeblog API and provides links to resources to get you started.

Blog Post Structure

The blog post structure is based upon the <item> structure of the RSS 2.0 specification. The minimum requirements for creating a blog post are the title and description elements.

Authentication

The MetaWeblog API uses the member’s email and password to authenticate themselves.

Members can only have one blog and because they cannot collaborate on other blogs. For all API calls, the blog ID is always 1.

Ning Networks support Really Simple Discovery to make configuring client applications easier for members. A RSD link is included on the main page of the Ning Network as well as blog pages. This means that members should be able to input the URL to their Ning Network into the client application and it will automatically configure itself. For example:

http://www.example.com/profiles/blog/rsd

In cases where Really Simple Discovery is not supported, you can directly access the XML-RPC URL at:

http://www.example.com/profiles/blog/xmlrpc