Ubiquity has changed how I use the Web

Yesterday, my colleague Jason pointed out a really cool Firefox plugin called Ubiquity. Although it's in an alpha release, this plugin has the power to change the way people use the Internet. In fact, it's already changed the way I work online.

So what is it? Well, it's best described as a easily accessible set of semantic tools that let you interact with the Web in new ways. It's easier to describe what it does, rather than describe what it is.

After you install the plugin, you hit a keyboard command to trigger an overlay that surfaces on the upper left side of your browser. Then you simply type a command. So for example, let's say that you're reading a blog and you come across a word that you don't know the meaning of. Simply highlight the word, trigger the Ubiquity overlay and type "define." Ubiquity will see that you have text highlighed and will offer up the definition of the word in the overlay.

You can do the same thing with maps. Let's say you've got an address on a web site that you want to map. Highlight the address, trigger Ubiquity and type "map" in the overlay. Ubiquity will see that you have an address highlighted and surface a Google map in the overlay. If you click on the map, it gets larger and you can print, email or embed the map in a page.

You can also update your twitter status from Ubiquity, by writing "twitter" followed by your update. Ubiquity will let you know how many characters you have left.

One of the cool things about Ubiquity is that it surfaces suggested commands as you type. So if I type "tw" it shows that the only command that uses those letters is twitter. At that point, I can stop typing out the entire command and Ubiquity knows that I'm using the Twitter command.

Another helpful command is the Wiki command. Type "Wiki" followed by what you want to search for and Ubiquity surfaces a handful of Wikipedia articles in th overlay. You can click through and go straight to the article in wikipedia.

These commands are just scratching the surface of what Ubiquity can do. The neat thing is that you can actually program new commands into Ubiquity.

I'll be keeping my eye on this cool plugin.

Check out the Tutorial here: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Labs/Ubiquity/Ubiquity_0.1_User_Tutorial

Download Ubiquity here: https://people.mozilla.com/~avarma/ubiquity-0.1.1.xpi