Wikipedia (say what you will about it, I like it) defines a cult as "a cohesive social group devoted to beliefs or practices that the surrounding population considers to be outside the mainstream." So, do you feel that the internetters fall into that description?

[Image Credit: Anonymous9000]

Before going into more of the similarities, it's worth taking a look at what most people consider to be the defination of a cult. When you think of the world "cult", what's the first image which comes to mind? The average, after speaking with many people, seems to include people dressed in robes worshiping Satan (or aliens). People also tend to associate it with artistically placed candles in some occult symbol and a male with a golden cape muttering nonsense.

However, a cult by most definitions does not need to be anything like this mental image; in fact it doesn't even need to be a religion. A cult in the most general sense is a collective of people who share beliefs not held by the public. So, doesn't that seem like the internet?

Tell me, how often have you heard someone reference any internet meme? Personally I've only had it happen at internet-related events. At this point we've established a share of information in a special jargon between members. In fact, these phrases are often misunderstood by those outside the internet, such as in the case of a "pool's closed" sign being interpreted to have racial undertones.

If you decide that for something to be considered a cult in your mind, it absolutely must pertain to religion (as is outside the previous standard definition mentioned above), you may even be able to find supporting evidence of this. Take the popular internet website Google. Have you ever thought about your definition of what God is? Is it Omniscient (all knowing)? Omnipresent (everywhere)? Omnibenevolent (does only good)? Well, actually Google fulfills all of these criteria according to the Church of Google.

You may think this is a joke religion, and I am likely to agree, however there exist stranger beliefs from well-recognized religions, such as those put forward by Scientology. There also exist other religions not directly related to the internet but which are supported mostly by the internet, such as Pastafarianism, or the belief in a flying spaghetti God. While I respect the ideas put forth by all religions, one would be odd not to consider the above cults.

So, do you think the internet is a cult? I do. As a result, I think we need to consider the general assumption that a cult is bad; where would we be without the Cult of the Internet?

The product is an "alpha 0.1 prototype," but don't let that stop you from giving it a try. If Mozilla is able to do this correctly, it will end up one of the most important things to happen to the web since "Web 2.0" added the needed functionality.

Essentially, Ubiquity is your command line for the web. If I wanted to insert a map, I would call up Ubiquity using a preset keyboard shortcut, then type "map" and a location. Ubiquity adds it to the page automatically. Done. I didn't need to go find some special service which generates embeddable images, nor did I have to go through the long process of visiting Google Maps, finding what I want, copying the link, and then tabbing over to the page I was working on to add it in.

This is the promise that Mozilla is making to users. Ubiquity is also able to extract data from a web page and do an infinite number of interesting and genuinely useful things with it. An example given in the video released by the team shows a user selecting some entries on popular classified website Craigslist and typing "map-these". Ubiquity is fast to parse the data and generate a map showing the locations of the sellers.

When you really think about it, it's surprising this has not been done sooner. Mozilla is set to make everyone's lives much easier for free, whereas many users would easily have paid for the feature from a third-party company. While services like PicLens can do interesting things with data, none of them comes close to the productivity benefit offered by this application.

The only fear that can be had for this application is that the syntax may become so rigid that it only appeals to power users. However, the ability of computers to interpret language is increasing constantly and this seems unfounded.

Overall, this looks like a promising application and I'm very excited to see later versions of it. Ubiquity gets a 4/5 for the unique abilities promised. If you're an early adopter, you can install the alpha version, or just check out the screencast below.