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November 02, 2002
Open-source personal info & micro-content
Vista is a "prototype for OSAF's Networked Personal Information Manager". OSAF is the Open Source Application Foundation.
There's a lot here that sounds like an only-slightly-better version of Entourage for the Mac: saveable "views" of any kind of data, the way rules seems to work. I like the idea of URL-based stuff, although I wonder if only advanced users really think of their own files and messages and stuff that way. There are some other really nifty ideas, especially around sharing of information using an IM-like model and a simple public/private switch.
There's something here that jibes with Anil Dash's terriffic microcontent client idea. Anil's approach is primarily reading, and secondarily writing microcontent (although both are important). An email program is really a 50-50 balance of writing and reading; perhaps a better starting point for a microcontent client. After all, news aggregation--keeping track of updates to a website through headlines or titles of new posts--is already quite a lot like the email interfaces we're familiar with. (See the interface of NetNewsWire, for example.) Responding to a post on a site (like leaving a comment or TrackBack link to this entry), is essentially an email exchange out in the open.
Posted by Andrew at November 2, 2002 05:41 PM