Web Intents
Yesterday’s post on Webmonkey about Google and Mozilla (makers of the Firefox web browser) teaming up on a new set of APIs (Application Programming Interface) for connecting applications and websites. It’s called Web Intents and provides a way for sites to pass data between each other.
So just what are Web Intents? Well, the easiest way to understand them is by example. Take the sometimes overwhelming proliferation of buttons on web pages that allow you to do something with the current page, whether it’s Like, Tweet, +1, Read Later, Add to Instapaper and so on. Rather than adding a dozen little badges to your site, Web Intents creates a bridge that connects your site to any website your visitor wants to use. Web Intents define an API for your site to use and another API for the receiving site to use. Plug them together and transferring data becomes a quick and easy process, both for users and developers.
From Tantek Çelik, creator of microformats, who refers to Web Intents as Web Actions:
Posted: August 9th, 2011“[W]eb actions have the potential to change our very notions of what a web application is from a single site to loosely coupled interactions across multiple, distributed sites…. In that regard, web actions have the potential to become a building block for distributed web applications.”
Filed under: Development, Innovation, Software, Web-based Tags: data, google, internet, microformats, mozilla, web intents | No Comments »
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