This was a big thing around the time of Flickr and, if my memory is still working, del.icio.us. There was a push for “url is the new command line” which I wish had gotten more traction because there were some fun things happening. I feel like Yahoo Labs was involved in a lot of it, including Pipes and their ahead of its time JavaScript framework. It’s a strange sliding doors moment for me because I turned down a job there right around this time.