Onramps and Offramps of Web Applications

Tara talks about onramps and the usefulness of your app as a command line program.

Lots to think about.

I always thought about applications and platforms as being powerful when it was easy and useful for stuff to go into them and for stuff to come out of them. So I guess that’s onramps and offramps.

Onramps – send from email or SMS, save file as, upload to, send to, web page sending………….

Offramps – blog this, digg this, email this, send this, download this, copy this, ‘rip, mix, share’, SMS this, comment on this, book mark this……….

For Zapr it was how do you get the created content to have a URL created and then how do you easily get those URL’s shared.

For Tangler it’s a different proposition. How do you get people with something to say about a topic to easily add it into the Tangle? How do you get a great conversation out into the world to where people want to see it?

Worthy brain fodder and it’s been on our minds for months.

Questions I have about onramps and Twitter? Are all applications like that?

Typepad went the other way and even Blogger wasn’t super onrampy.

Myspace – yes, they (accidentally) let people play with it and build tools on it, although now the FIN guys are shutting that gate. And it’s hardly a model citizen anyway.

Skype – limited API, maybe for network performance reasons.

eBay – lots of plug-inable stuff. Tick!

Google – so super light that it just sits anywhere – ask the Firefox guys!

More good examples of doing being the super-friendly-onramp app or of being the one way, hundred lane, walled (garden) road to nowhere.