How to register Known Types for serialization when using ASP.NET MVC Web API

You need to put the KnownTypeAttribute on your IMessage implementations:

public interface  IMessage
{
    string Content { get; }
}

[KnownType(typeof(Message))]
public class Message : IMessage {
    public string Content{ get; set; }
}

[KnownType(typeof(Message2))]
public class Message2 : IMessage
{
    public string Content { get; set; }
}

So when calling the following action:

 public IEnumerable<IMessage> Get()
 {
     return new IMessage[] { new Message { Content = "value1" }, 
                             new Message2 { Content = "value2" } };
 }

The result will be this:

<ArrayOfanyType xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/2003/10/Serialization/Arrays">
    <anyType xmlns:d2p1="http://schemas.datacontract.org/2004/07/MvcApplication3.Controllers" i:type="d2p1:Message">
        <d2p1:Content>value1</d2p1:Content>
    </anyType>
    <anyType xmlns:d2p1="http://schemas.datacontract.org/2004/07/MvcApplication3.Controllers" i:type="d2p1:Message2">
       <d2p1:Content>value2</d2p1:Content>
    </anyType>
</ArrayOfanyType>

But this will only work one "way". So you cannot post back the same XML.

In order to the following action should work:

public string Post(IEnumerable<IMessage> messages)

You need to register the known types globally, with configuring a DataContractSerializer and setting up in the GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Formatters

GlobalConfiguration.Configuration
                   .Formatters
                   .XmlFormatter.SetSerializer<IEnumerable<IMessage>>(
                       new DataContractSerializer(typeof(IEnumerable<IMessage>), 
                           new[] { typeof(Message), typeof(Message2) }));

With using the configuration you don't need the KnownTypeAttribute on your implementation types.