Great post and great ideas (mad libs, bubbles, etc.).

The two issues I worry about with text-centric application interfacing are:

1) Things becoming too busy — Imagine having to “find” the conversation with Foursquare among a sea of other app-versations. This will probably be fixed via a) search (but who wants to type the name of the service you’re looking for each time you run it?) or b) a strangely familiar “launch screen” within the text interface. My bet is on the latter.

2) Centralization. I’ll start with the example of why I quit using the facebook app on Desktop as a way to access Messenger and downloaded a third party app: the Facebook feed is too dominating when I just want to have a conversation with someone. The same stress will accompany app interactions via text — perhaps to a greater extent. If I want Foursquare to help me find a lunch spot but I open my text interface and see 3 other app responses and 8 other human beings texting me (some in real time), focus will be lost. This is already happening on Slack where I use Foursquare to find lunch spots — if I launch Slack to use Foursquare, I often get lost in another conversation. There is something good about sequestered binaries.