I came upon mention of iCommune from Todd Dominey today. The powerful use of this shareware struck me, more than the fact that Apple is trying to throw up a roadblock.
Essentially this app let's you stream music directly into iTunes from any mac with an internet connection. By accessing a structured song list of an iTunes playlist someone in San Francisco could play their friend's music in Atlanta as if the music was on their own computer in SF. I believe this piece of shareware has been removed from the iCommune site, but if you look around on limewire you might find a copy.
This got me thinking about the suite of other OS X applications like Watson, Sherlock, and Netnewswire. These apps are unique by offering a different approach to browsing the Web. Instead of heading to unique web sites users can view structure information within a self-contained application. This is general information like News, Movies, Stocks, Phone Numbers, Flights, etc.
To riff on a recent topic mentioned by Alex Wright, these apps make web sites look like custom typeset pieces, or "decorated directories". An application like Sherlock or Watson lets users focus on the task of information retrieval and quickly and consistently find results, like movie listings:
This could be a glimpse of things to come. Web site design is not going away, but good treatment of structured information will be crucial to create online services and experiences that last.
Links:
http://whatdoiknow.org/archives/000693.php
http://www.icommune.net/
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/internet_utilities/watson.html (Watson)
http://ranchero.com/software/netnewswire/ (Netnewswire)