Methods and apparatus for arbitrarily extendible information aggregation and display. This functionality is achieved by abstracting the components of the system into individual modules which communicate using a platform-independent, extendible markup language such as extensible markup language (XML). A designer adds support for new information sources or client devices by abstracting and encapsulating messages to and from the information source or client device in a wrapper using a platform-independent, extendible markup language such as XML.