A Google Wave revolution? What about Ubiquity?

Through Twitter I got my hands on a document called Technology Radar. Martin Fowler and his colleagues at ThoughtWorks created it “to help decision makers understand emerging technologies and trends that affect the market today”. One of the technologies it mentions is Google Wave, a next-generation collaboration platform.

Although this technology or platform is at an early stage, I’ve already tried it and can’t see it bringing something to the internet or web browsing that “every user is longing for.” Maybe it’s just the unfriendly interface, or the fact that I hardly use the service, but it didn’t impress me. In fact, none of my contacts there, and I have over twenty, sends me waves. They prefer to stick with good old email or instant messaging.

Google Wave strikes me as a misstep for now. The concept the Ubiquity project has introduced feels revolutionary. Let’s leave aside the fact that the tools are for somewhat different purposes and focus on what they offer me personally. When I browse the web I always get the uncomfortable feeling that the browser is an imperfect tool that has barely changed from the end user’s point of view.

I’ve often been working through a text and run across a word I can’t translate or don’t understand. Opening a new window to look up a translation or definition is a chore, and losing the context of the original window irritates me. That’s exactly where Ubiquity comes in. It lets me do what I want in the context of the page.

Image could not be loaded. Archive image in A Google Wave revolution? What about Ubiquity?, figure 1

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When I want to translate a word, I select it, press Ctrl+Space to activate Ubiquity, and type tran, short for the translate command. It translates the word automatically based on the language of the page and the browser’s language setting, or locale. I do the same for a definition, using wiki instead of tran. Running commands in context gives browsing another dimension and makes working on the web much faster and easier. If you’ve never seen Ubiquity, give it some attention. The time you spend on it will pay off a lot more than the time you spend on Google Wave.