Question: with all the craze of APIs, will spam increase? My answer: yes, for two reasons.

Social bookmarking site, such as delicious, can be accessed using an API, an application programming interface. The API is simple a set of function that sit on the delicious servers that you access using URLs. The URLs are specially formatted to pass information to the functions, and the functions send back XML-formatted results. Simple and useful, and can be automated.

However, one of the functions allows you to post links to delicious. Think about this for a second. You can, without human intervention, add links to delicious. Spam anyone? But you have to sign up for an account, right? Yes, sure. Imagine you spend a few hours signing up for many delicious accounts using proxy servers. Next, you write a little script that automatically posts to delicious your spammy links, using a different proxy server for each account. End result? You can probably reach the most popular list, probably have a link constantly on the front page and many other things. Add to this that delicious lists are syndicated, and suddenly your spammy pages pick up enough backlinks to rank for something.

And it's not just delicious: I've seen such API functions from a few other social bookmarking sites. This loophole is just too easy not to exploit.

Now part 2 of the answer: tagging. The latest fad on the net is called tag and ping. The idea is simple enough: you tag your content as belonging to a certain category, such as mortgage or viagra, or internet, cars, etc. Technorati then comes along, indexes your content and magically believes your tags. See the problem? Tag enough of your content with a high-income, highly-searched-for keyword, and you can drive enough traffic to your sites. Pinging sites like Technorati too often can trigger spam filters, but a blog network covering the same topic can ping it without too many problems. Imagine your blog content being the top 10 results in Technorati. Sweet $$$!

So what's the solution? For the APIs, removing the posting functions will do the trick. As for tagging and pinging, I have a couple of ideas, but no real solution. It's a matter of what Technorati and brothers believe as genuine tags.