The internet is changing. thanks to the popularity of destinations like Twitter, FriendFeed, and Facebook. The problem is that a significant amount of communication is taking place on these sites. This is resulting away from web standards for the most valuable aspects of our interaction online. This sucks.
Twitter is essentially creating their own “standard”, and for the most part we trust them to do a better job creating a standard than Microsoft did with Internet Explorer. Sadly, we are going to end up with new ActiveX problems.
The thing is, these systems are not creating new methods of interaction online, but rather new channels. There is no reason that the channels can not use existing standards.
For example:
- Twitter should be using XMPP
- Friendfeed should be using NNTP
- Facebook should be using XMPP and IMAP
The example of longer, email-style messages like in Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, etc is the easiest to solve. Why in the world can I not subscribe to a Facebook IMAP account? This is loads better than having messages forwarded to my phone or existing email. For instance, with an IMAP interface to system messages I would be able to subscribe on my computer (have historical copies, be able to file messages, see reply status, etc). That way, the messages wouldn’t have to exist everywhere. I would not have to subscribe to that account on my phone. I wouldn’t have to see those messages in webmail. etc, etc.
By using existing standards for system messages it allows me to prioritize based on the source. I don’t expect it will happen, but it is what I want to happen.
