It’s official, the W3C have finally launched their efforts to standardise APIs and formats for web application development with the announcement of two new Working Groups: The Web APIs Working Group and the Web Application Formats Working Group.

The Web APIs Working Group will work on standardising and improving upon, among other things, XmlHttpRequest() and the window object; and reviving the stagnant DOM Level 3 work. They will also produce guidelines for web applications and other educational material. As discussed in the Web APIs WG Charter, This will involve collaboration with other external groups including, among others, the WHATWG and the WaSP DOM Scripting Task Force.

The Web Application Formats Working Group will develop languages for client side web applications. In particular, they will work on standardising existing formats such as Mozilla’s XUL, Microsoft’s XAML, Macromedia’s MXML or Laszlo Systems’ LZX. They will also work on the XBL 2 specification and produce guidelines and other educational material as required.

If you would like to be involved, or just keep up with their work, there is of course a public mailing for each of them: public-webapi and public-apiformats. As mentioned on their respective WG home pages, they’re also intending to be setting up blogs to discuss their work.