This is not really new. Mozilla  Ubiquity is a product from a well known concept. Pople has already start with keyword bookmark. It’s a shorcut linked to javascript which you can type in URL bar, eg: “g keyword” will look up keyword in google. There’s also IM to command where you can hook up your IM to certain services. I can recall there’s a TODO services using Yahoo as a bridge. And of course, there is Twitter that has been tapped by everyone to hook their service onto. RememberTheMilk use twitter as a shortcut to post new task into user task list.

There’s also yubnub.org. Yubnub make it possible for us to create a shorcut, console flavoured command to execute certain activity related to browsing. Basically it’s like a parameterized TinyURL. So you can also define “g -k <keyword>” to search keyword in google. What makes it different to the prementioned shorcut is that it is social. You can share your commands and you can use other’s commands as well. Same thing, different rules equals game changes.Mozilla Ubiquity, bring this concept to a new level. Not only you can define your own shorcut. You can code your shorcut in a javascript while utilizing built-in jQuery, FUEL API, and TrimPath js template engine. You’ll be provided with a cool API, a nifty console (also service as a canvas) to invoke your command via given shorcut, also a platform to share (Herd). There’s already a hefty load of commands. google, weather, twitter, email, calculate, and more. All of these commands are dissected as part of the documentation. So you’ll know how to send email using a pre-selected content (text/image) on your browser. You’ll know how to handle credential, which you’ll be dealing with when building a twitter-like command. You’ll know how to manipulate you page content. And so on.

Not interesting enough? I’ll let you know somthing. There’s this free SMS gateway to use. Do you think you can build a comamnd to positevely exploit it into a mashup? Or you already tickled with something else? Share your ideas or Ubiquity command here. Unleash the hacker/coder in you! Rock on! Create something sexy!

PS: How many reader can you guess will skip this post?

Photo by Thomas Hawk