Mozilla Lets Snowl Fly

Mozilla has launched the prototype of a Firefox messaging extension that might eventually allow users to keep track of all their online communications.

They’ve called it Snowl, and in the words of Mozilla developer Myk Melez, it’s “a primitive implementation with many bugs, and subsequent versions will include changes that break functionality and delete all your messages, making you start over from scratch." But it’s going to interest a lot of people.

According to ZDNET, the prototype messaging Firefox extension could let users eventually keep track of all their online communications in one place. It lets people prioritize messages depending on their importance, and also lets them find messages with a search-based interface.

Essentially, Snowl is an answer to the question of whether a web browser can let people take part in online discussions, and utilizes browser functionality to navigate messages.

For now Snowl supports RSS/Atom feeds and Twitter, with interfaces give a triple-pane list view or a “river of news” for browsing. In time Snowl might well support AIM, Google Talk and Facebook as well as the ability to receive and send conversation messages, and more.

For now Mozilla is letting Snowl fly around a bit and is soliciting feedback from users to see if the project shows “promise.”