I wasn't sure which category a business proposal should go on this forum. Let me introduce it here for the moment, we can move on as directed by the admin.

This is a proposal intended for the JavaScript developers. Hope we can find more business oriented gurus here than around other JavaScript sites.

What I'd like to do is to create a common interface protocol for different embedded JavaScripts to communicate within a webpage. Once the protocol is defined, we basically enable a mechanism to perform the so-called "social machine". Each embedded scripts can act as if an "agent" representing the interests from the home party. For example, enabling one embedded script (e.g. Google AdSense) to communicate with another embedded script on the same page (e.g. viMix video). I have developed a website that supports multiple 3rd party embedded JavaScripts. The site can be used as a platform to validate the concept and test the protocol. See the sample cases at [url removed as per forum rules]

I'm expecting the project to involve people with different skill sets, including architecture definition and project management. My hope is to make it an open source project. Intellectual property wise, all parties should be able to benefit from getting a head-start of developing the applications, instead of trying to cash in from the protocol itself. So I think a GNU license is a good way to cover the IP issues.

Any thoughts?

--Mason

I wasn't sure which category a business proposal should go on this forum. Let me introduce it here for the moment, we can move on as directed by the admin.
We don't have a specific place for business proposals because we're still dealing with the issue of link droppers. You are a regular member so I'm keeping this open.

Also, I moved it to the software forum in the hopes it will get the attention of the developers.

Hi Mason,

What an interesting idea. Please elaborate on why you see a need for such interaction between 3rd-party scripts.

Are you only interested in developing protocols for Javascript, or are you just starting there?

Have you considered the security issues and existing mechanisms to protect against "cross-site scripting" attacks? From your post it sounds like the proposal would be encountering that issue and those mechanisms directly.

The cross-site scripting attack is definitely one of the issues that needs to be addressed. Due to the nature of the attack, the concern falls more on the side of privacy than destruction. So it’s reasonable to expect some solutions could be derived to lower the risk to a minimum so that people would feel comfortable to use the service, at least for the apps less sensitive to privacy.

Let me move on to the concept itself. Right after WWW, people started thinking about the next generation of the web. Semantic web is one of the areas that people have tried very hard in. If you look at the bottom line of the semantic web concept, the main goal is to define a protocol to allow the web contents to communicate with each other directly.

In other words, the semantic web is trying to create a system with two faces, one for web visitors to read, and the other for computers to read. The purpose of the application is to create a so-called "social machine".

One of the key concepts in the semantic web is the "agent". The idea is to allow web applications to create agents acting on behalf of the users. An intelligent agent can take over many tedious tasks like scheduling and sorting; plus the agent can also help to bring in methodology to the process of product selection and decision-making. Well, you may consider that as a benefit of lowering the risk of impulsive behaviors, or taking much fun out of daily life. But I think the agent may suggest some other fun stuff you would never have thought of ;-)

Now, here is my idea. You can enable the agent and the communications between web applications by coding the agent in JavaScript code. Of course, you also need to have the environment for the agents to operate. That’s where the need for the ability to support embedded JavaScripts from multiple parties of the user's choice comes in. This is certainly not a full-scale solution as far as semantic web is concerned. But it can be a practical solution based on today's technologies.

Hope that explains it.

--Mason

Thanks for the explanation, Mason.

This sounds a lot like the concept behind AJAX (http://www.adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/archives/000385.php) ("Advanced Javascript and XML" or "Asynchronous Javascript and XML" or XHTTP)

Is this idea a different kind of approach?

I'm not an Ajax expert. To my understanding, what Ajax trying to achieve is to eliminate the start-stop-start-stop nature of interaction on the Web. Seems Ajax is more on the performance of one applications versus on the ability of communications between the multiple applications enabled on the same site. The latter one is what I'm going after.

Please fill in if anyone have the better knowledge about Ajax.

Business wise, I'm looking for inputs on the applications, as well as how to form an online operation for a joint development.

Thanks,

-Mason