Aggregating application interactions

Snap is an interesting idea that takes the normal passive mode of RSS and uses it for taking action. The example is a to-do list system that works inside your feed-reader. You subscribe to an interaction feed and can post new to-do items, mark existing ones as done, postpone others etc. The to-do list is a web-app running somewhere but all your interaction is through your feed-reader using RSS feeds and good old HTML forms.

What is interesting about this idea is that you could use your feed-reader to aggregate many applications. Not aggregate information but aggregate actions. You could have your email alongside your to-do list alongside your blog comment approval system, all in the feed-reader. Action feeds could come from desktop apps as well as web-apps, from Facebook as well as Outlook. The focus then becomes not “what application should I use now?” but “what item should I interact with now?” A bit of GTD in there but instead of having a list of to-do entries pointing at items you have a list of items.

It reminds me a bit of various PIM projects like Haystack which tried to create a unified interface for disparate information systems.

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