Here is a a little preview of where I am going with the iCite net:

the iCite net is a name for the network of iCites. It is a network that is open to (or on top of, or in) other networks--THE iCite net is part of THE Internet, and iCites can also live on private networks, local computers, hand helds, mobile phones, and other devices (usually ones that are at least sometimes connected to networks).

So, iCites are a way to do things ;-)

The basic software necessary for iCites is kind-of equivalent to DNS, web servers, and search engines. With iCites, there are: iCNS (or just CNS for those that need a TLA), iCite Containers, and iCite Indexes.

The access interface to an iCite is through iCite Gateway modules. The first modules that will be developed are gateways for HTTP, XML, XHTML, RSS, XML-RPC, Blogger and/or MetaWebog API. I will post a list of planned (or wished for) gateway modules in the near future.

So, the interesting bits are the iCite containers and iCNS--that's what requires some demonstration and dedicated explanations that are forthcoming.

I am working on a spec / prototype / reference implementation (in Java) for at least the core software needed to demonstrate and experiment with the iCite net.

This website is for talking about this development, but will also host the prototype iCite applications. Once these are live, this site will itself be live iCites that you will be able to play with.

At that point, I also will be inviting you to create your own free iCites here to help test and develop things further.

FYI, iCites will be portable from one host to another, and the idea is that iCite software can be developed in many programming languages and many hosts can host iCites. So, what is being developed here won't lock people into this site. And, the software I am developing will be released as Open Source.