Teaching uses of Scratch Socket Server

I've been playing with the socket server present in Scratch that allows Scratch to read data from the Picoboard.  This feature also allows Scratch to communicate with other programs (via global variables, broadcasts, and sensor values).  Although interesting in itself, I'm not seeing how these communication capabilities would be useful in the classroom.

So, I'm asking the ScratchEd group.  Here's a few ideas of projects that I think could be possible using the communication capability.  Do you think they have educational uses?  (Note that these projects would require an external program running in the background to coordinate the communications.)

• Scratch Chat - 2 computers (within same local area network) could have a text chat via Scratch.  Maybe the chat could appear as 2 sprites talking to each other.
• Weather Station - the external program could pull weather data from a website and feed it to Scratch.  Students programs could collect / graph / analyze some weather parameter.
• WebSnatch - OK, dumb name.  The idea here is that the external program could periodically access a website and look for a keyword, then return something back to Scratch that the students could use for something (pretty vague definition!).
• File Access - the communication capability could be used as a simple file read / write system to allow Scratch programs to save / restore data (maybe from / to a list).

Is there educational value to such projects?  Or maybe these ideas have got your creative juices flowing and you have a better idea.  Either way, I'd like to hear your feedback.

Thanks,

Kent