LinkedIn has announced the launch of an API for its Groups feature. Millions of professionals use LinkedIn Groups every day to connect and share information with fellow professionals. There are now almost 1 million groups on LinkedIn and the service has launched the API to help group owners to enable new ways for their group members to engage with each other.

Developers who wish to use the Groups API can harness the insights and networking tools that exist in LinkedIn Groups to use in third-party apps. The API will allow applications to view group discussions by popularity and recency, view My Group Memberships, and offer suggested groups. Apps created using the API may also allow you to post new group discussions; comments, like and follow group discussions; and send requests to connect with other professionals.

Microsoft has launched the first large-scale implementation of the Groups API on its Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2011 website. Microsoft says that 53 percent of those who took part in a recent Microsoft Partner Network survey use LinkedIn. With its conference website, Microsoft is hoping to help the growth of the partner community and promote real-time, vibrant conversation throughout the event.

The API will also let the Microsoft Partner Network to take advantage of content longevity — any content that is added to LinkedIn Groups during the event will remain on the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2011 group beyond the event. If LinkedIn Groups functionality was not included on the website, this content may have been deleted from the Web after the event, meaning that attendees would have to act on any relevant information immediately. But, because the content will remain on the LinkedIn Group, they can act on content that is important to them after the event is over.

LinkedIn opened up its API platform to developers in April and has since launched APIs for Company and Jobs data. An iPad app called Idea Flight has used LinkedIn’s APIs in a cool way and LinkedIn’s Hackdays have led to some fun apps — such as SpeechIn, “DropIn,” the LinkedIn Connection Timeline and the 2010 Year in Review — being created using the APIs.

If you are a developer who would like to use the LinkedIn Groups API, you can check out the documentation at LinkedIn’s developer website.