Web and Messaging
Browsers are how we access the web, and contain a lot of useful information about us - what we read, our schedule, our interests, where we shop, bank and more.
Messaging apps are how we connect to our friends, families, and increasingly how we talk to bots, services, devices and take care of business.
How can we bridge these worlds? How can we make them complementary?
Let's explore how to make these two integral parts of our online lives play together!
Last year we focused on enumerating features possible in each area, and listing APIs for different messengers.
Examples
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A bot in a messaging app that you can ask for information about your browser profile: "What's that page I was reading about the Hutongs of Beijing?".
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A service in the browser that sends web pages, images and videos to your friends in your messaging apps.
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A bot in the messaging app that sends you username/password hints for your websites via a secure channel, or acts as a two-factor authentication mechanism somehow?
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Saving web pages you saw in the messaging app to your browser history, or as bookmarks.
Join in the chat: https://gitter.im/web-and-messaging/general
This project is part of the Mozilla Global Sprint on May 10-11, 2018. It's a gathering both in-person at sites around the world and online to collaborate on projects and learn from each other. Sign up here, and then read on to participate in this project.
Participation
This year, I'm going to focus on building a browser extension that logs you into one or more messenger apps, and maybe a bot that logs you into Firefox. You can participate in that project, or in any other type of exploration of this area:
- Design: Ideation on possible types of integrations in either direction. Bots? Add-ons? Deep-linking? Games? Media? How can usage in one complement the other, in either direction? Add your ideas to the Ideation issue.
- Research: Most popular messaging apps broken down by country and userbase, or listing the API abilities and links to documentation for the top apps?
- Research: What browser add-ons exist which integrate with messaging apps?
- Research: Which browser features and data which might be useful for sending to, or receiving from messaging apps. What add-on APIs existing in browsers for these, if any?
- Assets: Creating asset repositories or documenting the license and URLs of things like icons for the apps and the browsers.
- Prototypes: Prototype ideas for messaging app and browser integrations. Some discoveries are only possible by trying things out!
- Tools: Building or documenting tools for connecting services. For example, libraries for authenticating users to their messaging services or browser services.
- Anything else you can think of related to how the web and messaging apps can integrate!
Getting Started
- Have any information or ideas for things related to integrating messaging apps with the web? File an issue to share it!
- Want to contribute documentation, research or design information? Send a pull request!
Contributing
Thanks for your interest in contributing to Web and Messaging! There are many ways to contribute. See examples of the types of contributions above.
To add your ideas or projects, or to work on one of the ideas listed above, create a new issue for it and we'll work on it there together.
To add documents, data or code to the repo:
- Fork this repository. This makes your own version of this project you can edit and use.
- Make your changes! You can do this in the GitHub interface on your own local machine. Once you're happy with your changes...
- Submit a pull request. This opens a discussion around your project and lets the project lead know you are proposing changes.
First time contributing to open source? Check out this free series, How to Contribute to an Open Source Project on GitHub.
Communication channels
Come chat on Gitter.im: https://gitter.im/web-and-messaging/general
Participation Guidelines
This project adheres to a code of conduct. By participating, you are expected to uphold this code. Please report unacceptable behavior to [autonome@gmail.com].
Who Am I?
I'm Dietrich Ayala, a developer relationist at Mozilla. Email me or reach me at @dietrich on Twitter.
MozSprint
Join us at the Mozilla Global Sprint May 10-11, 2018! We'll be gathering in-person at sites around the world and online to collaborate on this project and learn from each other. Get your #mozsprint tickets now!
