Mozilla Ubiquity: A Better Web

Big websites have had microformats, which are machine-readable ways of storing data in HTML, for a long time. So far, the only thing I've really seen come of this is a few choice addons which could, for example, add a Facebook user to your Outlook contacts. However, Mozilla has just released some details on a project it calls Ubiquity which blows away all the existing uses.

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.