Mozilla Rides The Google Wave With Raindrop

Like Google Wave, the project, called Raindrop, is an effort to centralize the disparate sources and ways in which most of us receive digital information. Raindrop is an interface for information users receive from e-mail, notifications, conversations and from social networking sites like Twitter, Flickr and YouTube.

Mozilla Labs' blog provides screen shots to the first and second iterations of the Raindrop prototype. Mozilla plans to support front-end applications, including mobile ones and flagship applications that will be built for any modern browser that supports Open Web technologies.

Mozilla is attempting two main goals with Raindrop: first, to provide an interface for users to handle all of the data in their digital world, and second, to create a programming API for developers to extend features and create new systems on top of that data.

Raindrop uses a mini Web server to fetch conversations from differing sources such as mail, Twitter and RSS feeds, allowing users to interact with the data through a browser.

There is no download available as of yet, but the code is available: here.

The project is being led by the developers of Mozilla Messaging, more specifically, the team that develops the Thunderbird messaging client.

The blog also addresses the inevitable comparison to Google Wave with this statement: "Google Wave is attempting to create a new form of messaging. We applaud their effort to innovate in the messaging space, and if it gains traction, we will be looking at ways to integrate the messaging protocols from Wave into the open, extensible user interface of the Raindrop platform. In the meantime, Raindrop is focusing on complementing existing messaging sources."

Read the full Mozilla Labs blog post by clicking here.