Web Intents, Web Components and the future?

Hello,

A colleague and myself were discussing how most web applications suffer
from feature creep over time and lose sight of their original design goals.
This is generally because the only way to add functionality is to directly
integrate it. We realised that an Android style Intent system for the web
would help alleviate these issues and then discovered Web Intents. This was
then followed by disappointment that the work seemed to have been
discontinued already. I have written some of our thoughts here
http://dev.mygrid.org.uk/blog/2014/10/you-want-to-do-what-theres-an-app-for-that/

It seems that Web Intents and Web Components are complimentary technologies
which would help free developers from the need for their applications to do
everything. In the BioJS project (http://biojs.net/) we are developing
widgets for life sciences to enable web developers to easily add
functionality to their applications. If these could be discovered and
installed from an app store as web components with published intents rather
than having to be directly integrated with your application then that would
make the development process significantly easier.

Some people have noted that the original Web Intents design was maybe too
complicated (
http://benlog.com/2012/02/09/a-simpler-webbier-approach-to-web-intents-or-activities/)
but that doesn't mean that the concept is not valid. A basic cross browser
standard for service discovery and invocation would help free us all from
the tyranny of integration. I truly believe that Web Intents are far too
useful to consign to history.

Cheers,

Ian