A colleague sent me a message titled “IM as the new command line”. It was a link to IMified, an single instant-messaging gateway to things like to-dos, reminders, stock quotes and, through an API for creating other gateways, numerous third-party sites like Google Calendar, Basecamp, Twitter and stuff.
The UI has some web aspects, as for the directory of available widgets, creation of custom shortcuts and so on. But the main interface, the one in IM?
Numbered menus.
With “B” to go “back” to the previous menu and “M” to go back to the main menu.
That’s right:
It’s Compuserve, circa 1981, down to typing “M” to go to the main menu!
No Sam Goody online store offering vinyl and cassettes yet, and they do have lowercase support, which is very fancy.
I do think it’s a coincidence, though. If they really were ripping off Compuserve, each service would have a predefined keyword you could use to access it directly, like “GO REMINDERS” to jump straight to the reminder service, “GO QUOTES” to get stock quotes, etc. No such staggering feats of productivity-enhancement here yet. Give them time, though. They’ll stumble on the idea sooner or later.
