Due to the ever-increasing accessibility of the internet and new users connecting hourly, web services are springing up at every turn to provide previously offline services via the web platform. Maps, reviews, photo editing, bookmarking, calendars, “to do” lists… all offered online. This has allowed users to become more critical of available services and to better manage their daily online workflow and information-seeking methods. This means sharing information and interacting with others internationally has never been easier…
Work aside, how can I share information online with a friend?
Let’s take a map as an example… Typically you might visit the relevant website, find the map, save an image of the map to your computer, open your email, attach the image and click ’send’. Wow, my blood pressure and heart rate increased just thinking about this lengthy process… all this to get a simple image of a map to a friend! Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, web dudes and dudettes alike, I present to you… Ubiquity.
Ubiquity is an extension of Firefox (written by Mozilla Labs), a popular open-source web browser that brings the web to your screen with minimal effort. Today, updating your calendar, sending a map to a friend, posting a message out of Twitter, checking the weather, and translating a website are all possible with the Ubiquity extension. Typing in a simple command set enables the required information (such as a map) to come to the user, allowing users to easily share information and interact with other users online, while also increasing productivity levels in the workplace and in any other day-to-day online activities.
As Ubiquity has been built on an open-source platform, it is possible to extend the system to include whichever services you desire, limited only to your level of imagination and coding ability. Instead of the user having to search, rummage and sort through information to find what they’re looking for, Ubiquity allows owners and developers of popular websites to extend their online functionality and take it directly to the user.
This, for me, marks a shift in the way the web interacts with its users (note: not the other way around). If this approach to technology spreads across other platforms (television, kitchen appliances, etc), the technical world will be a very exciting place in which to live.
For a visual demonstration of Ubiquity, view this screencast:
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Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.
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