Idea two sounds like GMail/GCal's got it covered, you're just suggesting a different input mechanism. Not that it wouldn't be a good programming exercise, but.

Idea two sounds like GMail/GCal's got it covered, you're just suggesting a different input mechanism. Not that it wouldn't be a good programming exercise, but... mynameishere has a point. Your proposed dynamic input mechanism does, however, sound like the right granularity for IM/SMS. As in, an IM/SMS to your service with the contents "contact: Paul Graham pg@ycombinator.com" updates your address book. "money: 9.48 Quiznos" updates a ledger. "note: news.yc needs UTF-8 meta tag" sends a note. Twitter's taking off; a context-aware Twitter seems like a cool idea. Just don't give it a name that implies Chester Cheetah should be skateboarding all over your site. Radical.