-
Website
http://www.scobleizer.com/ -
Original page
http://scobleizer.com/2008/08/26/mozilla_ubiquity/ -
Subscribe
All Comments -
Community
-
Top Commenters
-
danja
44 comments · 4 points
-
polizeros
52 comments · 1 points
-
AndyBeard
69 comments · 4 points
-
Zachary Adam Cohen
35 comments · 8 points
-
dbarefoot
40 comments · 3 points
-
-
Popular Threads
-
The best and worst thing Twitter did in 2009: RT
16 hours ago · 20 comments
-
World-brand-building mistakes France’s entrepreneurs make
1 week ago · 181 comments
-
2010: the year SEO isn’t important anymore
6 days ago · 66 comments
-
iPhone developers abandoning app model for HTML5?
6 days ago · 51 comments
-
A 2010 real-time app development platform from Kynetx
14 hours ago · 2 comments
-
The best and worst thing Twitter did in 2009: RT
I think you'd call me passionate - I've submitted bugs for Firefox, I've written plug-ins for it, and my particular installation is quite customized. Heck, I've even written books about it. But I don't (yet) see a use for Ubiquity.
Why? Because it doesn't solve any problems I need solved.
For example, the first two examples they give in the instructions are searching Wikipedia and searching Google for a selection. The latter is already built into Firefox and requires nothing but a right click, and the former is easily solved with a search keyword. I've taken it a step further and have Quicksilver set up so I can click shift-control-W to pop up a Wikipedia search box, even if I'm not currently in a browser.
I'm sure there are people out there who use Activewords for exactly the same thing and wonder why they'd need a browser command line.
I realize it has potential far beyond that, but the thing about us passionate users is that we don't use something for its own sake. We use it because it makes our life better, or more efficient. Eventually I'll have a problem that Ubiquity is the perfect solution for, but for now it's just yet another unnecessary command line with a confusing muddle of beta-quality features attached.
Ubiquity looks a lot like a browser-specific version of Quicksilver, which is intriguing, but I'm hoping the real Quicksilver will continue to evolve so I don't need a tool like Ubiquity that is tied to a particular browser.
I do think this kind of this - Command Line interfaces for the web - is the first step towards Web OS. But who knows what a GUI would look like?
How many passionates were there 3 years ago, 2 years ago...
I think the language between machines and humans will eventually converge in a middle ground between natural and syntaxy. Ubiquity seems like a very flexible, open and accessible awesome first step.
Tweeting from UbiQ is a breeze, I'm guessing this is going to increase load on Twitter APIs like crazy!
Now that my husband has passed away, my clocks on the microwave and the stove just blink, my clock in the car is an hour off, and I can't use the our digital camera because I don't know how to charge it or get pictures from it into the computer.
I'm not stupid. I was Valedictorian of my high school and have an MBA which I received with honors. I use all kinds of software and have even designed a few applications by telling developers what I want done. I'm just not a task person. I don't like reading manuals, directions, etc. for gadgety things. I won't do it.
I think that's the key to understanding nonpassionates. The truth is we ARE passionate, we just need more help to get there. OR, better yet, make it so intuitive that we don't have to read a manual to figure it out.
I don't think everything can be intuitive - some very important things are complicated, like nuclear power plants. I think that it's about being happy to try new things and invest time, rather than just waiting for it to hit the mainstream. It's like my parents - they're scared of operating the video because they don't like figuring out how it works, but if they want to record something, they'll do it reluctantly, and they'll do it better next time. But they're not passionate about it - they'll say "aahhhh, that's handy" when it works, but I don't think they're passionate. So I'd agree with Scoble's divide.
Funny that you mentioned nuclear power plants. My husband was a Navy Nuke (reactor operator) for 8 years and he wound up working for Intel. But I was better at using software than he was. He was great at hardware, which I don't even like to mess with.
It's something to do with the brain's wiring I think, but I'm no expert, so I'm not sure I can explain it. I do read lots of nonfiction books (business) but I don't do manuals. I can force my brain to go there when I have to, like somebody is paying me to do so, but I won't on my own time. Even if I want to record something. :)
Maybe the key is in your car example where you said you'd take lessons. So would I. I wouldn't read a book to learn how to drive. I don't want to read instructions to learn how to use Ubiquity. Like I said in my previous post, show me how it works.
You know, I never thought of it this way, but maybe that's why I like Robert and read this blog, even though I'm not a techie. Robert shows me stuff. I want to see it used and hear about how it's being used and then maybe use it myself if I think it's useful or fun. I don't want to read an instruction book about it.
@Dawn, I don't think you're "passionate" if you need someone to download, install and show it for you. Passion comes with the initiative and desire to try it yourself. Scoble is right; Ubiquity is not for what he refers to as "non-passionate" people.
Seems to me that to expect passion on the frontend limits products more than they might otherwise need to be. I think Activewords has it right. That's something I'm actually using because of their babysteps approach. They didn't expect me to be passionate immediately. It worked.
I don't like the word "non-passionate" anyway. I'm a very passionate person. It's misleading and would likely offend people outside the tech world. Seems to me that to imply somebody isn't passionate, just because they don't like the kinds of things I like, is a bias seeking an -ism label.
Why can't we just say geek and nongeek. "Geek" is no longer an offensive term, right? Or is it?
First, ActiveWords is truly ubiquitous, not “Ubiquity for Firefox.” ActiveWords provides system wide functionality that acts on text entry (and stylus/fingertip entry on Tablet/UMPC now, and hopefully voice in the future).
Second, many have tried to set up fixed word – action “languages” but almost no users have made the investment to adopt them. ActiveWords offers each user the opportunity to define their own word – action relationships using their vocabulary and innate ability to name things. For those needing a fixed structure, ActiveWords can be locked down to fix these relationships for sets of users.
Third, how do these user defined word – action relationships fit together? The preferred answer is based on the personal semantic preferences of each user. ActiveWords allows the user to use the same ActiveWord for multiple actions and multiple ActiveWords for the same action. Over time, the user self organizes these semantic relationships.
Fourth, ActiveWords is extensible. It includes agent technology allowing third parties to create actions and suggested semantics (ActiveWords) to trigger events. Creating an ActiveWord agent that interfaces with Google APIs can duplicate everything demonstrated with “Ubiquity for Firefox,” and it can do so independent of a Firefox context (in any context or no context at all). For example, the actions of sending an email to Bob and inserting a Google map of a particular address can be triggered by one or more ActiveWords whenever the user thinks of it, not just when they are composing a new message in gmail.
Fifth, what if I use multiple computers and grow accustomed to word – action functionality? The ActiveWords personal data store is readily transferable between Windows computers and will someday be “in the cloud,” ready whenever you are on whatever computing device you happen to be using at the moment.
We continue to hope that projects such as “Ubiquity for Firefox” will spread the power and gospel of the word – action interface, ActiveWords. The productivity implications are important. The less time you are “computing” the more opportunity you have to create something of value.
Pete Weldon
ActiveWord Systems, Inc.
www.activewords.com
It reminds me of the mouse. At first, the mouse was a weird device that only a few people used. "how could you not use the keyboard for everything?" was the word of the day...here we go again. I am excited...
There is nothing new about a command-line launcher. They've been around for years. And 90% of what Ubiquity is promising can be accomplished with tools that are already available.
Ubiquity users are Early Adopters? Hardly. More like just catching on.
BTW: Acting like an ill-informed snob is not the same thing as being passionate. (Besides, we have Penn Gillette anytime we want to listen to that sort of nonsense.)
Come one, I appreciate that you feel the constant need to support your Activewords buddy but you can answer that one to yourself as you worked for Microsoft:
Activewords has not a single useful patent, it has not a single unique idea and there are and were dozens of programs which do/did the same before and are even free or open-source. Microsoft could do such thing in a snap if they really want to. There would be no value in a acquisition.
Examples?
1. PhraseExpress (My favourite. The video demo is a must: http://www.phraseexpress.com/demo.htm )
2. Autohotkey (Open Source and kind of geeky but very powerful scripting for the tekkies)
3. Direct Accelerator (Smart .NET user interface but a memory hog)
4. Ghost Typer XML ...
5. Launchy for the program launcher part
And so on.
--
Ubiquity looks fancy in the video but I doubt that users will find the right trigger words to do what they want to do. You need to know exactly what you 'can' type but I will certainly check it out at v0.9 :-)
Smare from Sweden
Here's the new add-on site: http://www.ieaddons.com/en/accelerators/
I'm re-posting from that train wreck over at Mashable. That's my last comment over there for a while. My comments on the video will go to your pay gig website shortly.
So... [snip]
Somewhere along the way, you became and are now a meta-reference (like it or not). [theme song to Fame plays softly in the background]
The passionate vs. non-passionate thing just made lose my patience with all of this when is was sucked into a Ubiquity discussion.
My take on it was that it was "Ubiquity is like Greasemonkey and Quicksilver and Enso all put into a blender with a shot of Mozilla protein powder. Slick!" [1]
http://twitter.com/qthrul/sta tuses/900109207
I know a lot of very passionate users that don't use Firefox. Yes. Shocking. They use Safari. They use IE. Opera! Yet, they still manage to run circles around most of what you appear to classify as "non-passionates".
People that are mono-thinker-platform tend to be asses when they are viewed by the larger community. We all know one. Heck, we might be one in certain areas. It's a bit like snobbery but uniquely finicky and frankly... (p)assionate.
-Jay
[1] I too am prone to assery.
So I don't think 'passionate / nonpassionate' is a suitable term either. And I don't think it's geek / nongeek either (I still think geek has offensive connotations here in the UK) because that also still implies technology, and I think we're looking at something wider.
Yoshio
This is just another way to try to overcome the same challenge.
I prefer an idea like accelerators in IE8 more but I can understand that some people will prefer a keyboard driven command center.
There have always been those who like to click and those who prefered typing.
I REALLY rely on my Google Bookmarks, so bye-bye Ubiquity until this bug is fixed.
No, emacs doesn't handle images all that well, but given all the other things that it does (browsing was just a minor add-in) ....
The popular opinion looking at the future of the internet (or whatever we're going to call it in 10+ years) is that everything without a digital signature today will be connected by then. So, someone won't be given the choice of a red pill or a blue pill but be asked to choose to live within the world or live in a bubble.
Rather than suggesting this product is for a segment of society, wouldn't you be better regarded (and the product receive greater support) if everyone embraced it and not a passionate few?