Inbox - a messaging app based on Linked Data Notifications and Solid

Antonín Karola, Jakub Klímek

Keywords: Solid, Linked Data Notifications, ActivityStreams, messaging

TL;DR: A simple app demonstrating messaging via Solid and Linked Data Notifications focused on users rather than developers.

Abstract:

In the context of the recent web re-decentralization and true data ownership initiative, several W3C Recommendations building on top of linked data were published.
These include the Linked Data Platform for basic read-write capabilities, Linked Data Notifications (LDN) as a simple messaging protocol, and Activity Streams 2.0 (AS2) as a message content vocabulary.
Together with WebID for user identification, they are used within the Solid ecosystem by various applications.
However, the majority of current Solid-based applications are technological demonstrators, aiming mainly at developers rather than end-users.
In this demonstration, we present Inbox, a Solid, LDN, and AS2 based messaging application.
It aims at being a user-friendly demonstrator of the recent technologies, resembling an ordinary e-mail client with the expected functionalities.
These include reading messages from inboxes, getting notified of an incoming message, and being able to send messages to arbitrary inboxes and to user's contacts present in their Solid Pod.