ComputerCraft social cloud... 0_o this could be BIG

Not positive that this is the perfect place for this topic but here goes:

I am a web developer very interested in building a ruby-on-rails service aimed at extending the computercraft experience to the cloud.

I would like to provide a free service using my colocated servers that will allow players to (without installing any CC addons) connect their computers to aforementioned service so that they (and others [spectators, etc.]) may interact with their minecraft worlds from the web. Potential features include (but most definitely limited to):

remotely tracking turtle inventory/peripherals/jobs/progress/status/whatever
remotely issuing tasks to networked computers/turtles
connecting to third party services such as google talk/facebook/twitter/youtube from within the minecraft world
do all of the above from a completely different minecraft server than where the computers are running, even from SSP worlds
synchronize/manage/edit (in a more user-friendly editor) programs on any computer on the network as well as share them socially
utilize a minecraft 'google latitude' across servers/ssp worlds, etc.
i'd like to have one lua program to set you up with any other support programs required to start you off, followed by a simple configuration/registration in-game after which you sign into the web-interface –we'll see what's best

Anyways, back on earth where i'd like to start… I require some help to get these things done :-/

As I said before, I'm a web developer; not the biggest Java fan. Also I've not used lua very extensively either. I mention these things because:

1. The http api is all good but these fantastic things will require support for protocols beyond just http, in addition there needs to be some way to maintain a session between client and server (websockets support would be AWESOME!) - but i'm not sure what kind of implications that would have on the mods end
2. It would definitely go faster and probably be more stable if i'm not writing all the lua client code myself.

Please let me know what you think (possible / onboard), I develop full-time and am starting my own modded minecraft server and would absolutely love to roll out something like this.

PS – big Direwolf20 fan <3 (no homo)

Go for it! I'm sure nearly everyone would love being able to check on the status of their quarry or the diamonds in their storage system when they're not at their real-life computer.

must find a way to secure it though

@KaoS, sorry for the delay.. as far as security goes I was initially going with the de facto one-way hashing password check for user authentification (using Oauth 2.0 probably) combined with a 'cookie' file (not 100% sure on the nitty-gritty details of how that works as rails is a high-level framework for a high-level language and browsers handle it on their own). Should be simple though…

I was having a peek at cc-get's code to see what insights might lie inside… they seem to be using json for data which is what i was thinking as well, rails can handle this easily. There's a few different libraries out there for handling json in lua, I've not spent much time with lua so the language reference is the next thing on my list to look at.

I sent DjRanger a message (author of cc-get [also web-developer]) to see if he'd be interested in working on this with me, also sent Direwolf20 a message (havn't heard back yet, though he's responded almost instantly in the past :-/ probably just busy) as well as Slowpoke101 in attempt to gather support and some attention / awareness

any other suggestions, thoughts, comments, criticisms, i'll even accept snide remarks

Thanks guys!

I had an idea to do this, but mine wouldn't have been public. Seriously though, go ahead, and MAKE IT FLEXIBLE, so using the API we can show certain variables, and take in variables. Personally, I think the http api is enough, but maybe less so for receiving the data.