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Source:Mashable!

I may lose my “early adopter badge” for saying this, but I do not see how Ubiquity really helps anyone. Given that it is a 0.1 release, I know it is far from complete. However, it seems like there is a lot of development required to really make the browser a platform, and make it easier for people to use the Internet as a service. When I say a lot, I mean a minimum of two years until early adopters can praise it like they have praised services like Twitter or FriendFeed. For the rest of the mainstream, we are looking at closer to five years given the traditional adopter cycle.

Of course, the logical question is why do I feel this way? First, look at the examples from the user tutorial. Being able to type “email to Mike” so that GMail creates an email and sends it is not a huge advancement. The search examples are much of the same thing. You can type “wikipedia babel fish” and it will search Wikipedia for you. Obviously, this barely saves any time or mouse clicks. All of the examples are this simplistic, and this adds to my “shouldn’t there be more” feeling.

I am generally underwhelmed for a few different reasons. First, why make the browser the platform? Isn’t it easier to create a website that does all of the same things? Isn’t this what sites like iGoogle or any other personalized homepage with widgets are trying to do? Does this just mean we need better websites?The big question I have with this is “What are we trying to do?” My understanding of the “browser as a platform” concept is that we are trying to treat the Internet as a service or a data source. You can do interesting things when not constrained to a specific page. I think Ubiquity is meant to change the way we work, and that is what I want. The problem is that we are not there yet, and it takes a little imagination to get there.

“Summon Ubiquity” is used throughout the documentation. Why? The services should just be active and ready from a toolbar or even parsed in the address bar. The commands also need to be very generic. If I am searching for information, let me type “find babel fish.” The built-in services can search Wikipedia, Google, Yahoo and whatever other search services that support Ubiquity. The process should be meta-everything. If I need a definition, I can type “define ubiquitous” and the service would look for definitions on various reference sites like Dictionary.com and any other engines that support definitions. Another area that could benefit greatly from integration with Ubiquity is semantics and linked data. Both would provide plenty of context and data sources for some interesting applications.

There are a few features that I really like about the service as well. They have included a concept of context or “this.” If I have selected a large section of text on a Web page, I can enter “email this to Mike” and the selected text gets emailed to my contact named Mike. Context in any activity is extremely important, and creating a quick way to get the context is fantastic. The other extremely important feature is that new commands can be created with just some lines of JavaScript. This means that there is not a huge learning curve for the API, it is just a matter of linking together the right API calls. The fact that you do not need to restart Firefox while developing is a nice bonus as well.

Overall, it is fairly obvious that Ubiquity is an interesting technology, but it is still very immature. It is something we should keep an eye on in terms of the platform development as well as what commands and applications developers create on top of the platform.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Mozilla Announces Ubiquity for Universal AccessAdobe to Acquire Makers of Web-Based Word Processor BuzzwordMore Bad News for VonageThe Web 2.0 Office? Not yet…Happy 4th Birthday Del.icio.usSlacker Signs Deals with 3 Major Record LabelsBuzzword Launches Social Features with Zoho Writer Rival

Source:Mashable!

Microsoft has announced that it will acquire Greenfield Online Inc, a company that owns Ciao GmbH, a leading European shopping and price comparison site. Microsoft will purchase all outstanding shares of Greenfield Online for $17.50 per share, which means that the total value of the transaction is approx. 486 million dollars. As others have noticed, Greenfield already had a deal in place with media PE firm Quadrangle Group LLC., who was supposed to buy Ciao for $426 million, but it seems that Microsoft had outbid them.

John Mangelaars, vice president, Consumer and Online, Microsoft Europe, Middle East and Africa has said the following about the transaction: “Ciao’s success has been led by a team of talented people who took a unique combination of intuitive technology and the insight that comes out of their passionate consumer community to become one of Europe’s leading shopping comparison sites. This makes the company a fantastic asset to the future of our search offer. Integrating Ciao’s capabilities into Live Search will provide a strong launchpad for our commercial search offer in Europe and enhance our e-commerce offering on MSN.”

According to comScore, Ciao has over 26.5 million unique monthly visitors, and it’s one of the leaders in the price comparison, consumer product reviews and shopping site arena in Europe. According to the PR, Ciao’s technology platform, online community and extensive merchant relationships will be integrated within the Live Search platform. Microsoft’s recent efforts to combine shopping and search are obviously part of a bigger strategy, in which Microsoft plans to corner the shopping market and commercial search, as it can’t hurt Google when it comes to general purpose search.

Microsoft has also secured a buyer for Greenfield Online’s Internet survey solutions, and both transactions are expected to close during the fourth quarter of 2008.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:How I Spent My Billions: A Brief History of Ad Network AcquisitionsRumor: Microsoft Wants To Buy Ustream.TVDone Deal: Microsoft Buys Musiwave for $50 MillionGoogle, Microsoft, Yahoo Settle Internet Gambling Court CaseMicrosoft Scores $500 Million Online Ad Deal with ViacomYahoo Acquires Maven Networks for $160 MillionConfirmed: Microsoft Wins Facebook Stake with $240 Million Investment

This entry was posted on Friday, August 29th, 2008 at 9:35 am and is filed under social networking, web 2.0, microsoft, web, shopping, acquisition, Ciao, Greenfield. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.