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Ubiquitous Rypples

Austin Tam ~ February 4th, 2009

Whoo hoo! We’ve created a quicker way to Rypple using Ubiquity. Just what is Ubiquity? Read on dear reader…

The web has greatly simplified our lives. All the world’s information is a Google search away, our friends’ lives are nicely aggregated for us on Facebook, and you get quick, frequent and insightful feedback on Rypple. But have you ever sat down and thought about the steps involved in setting up dinner with some friends using email? Most people have to:

  1. search for a restaurant and copy the address
  2. paste the address into an email
  3. paste the address into a map site and copy the link
  4. paste the map link into the email
  5. search for the restaurant review and copy the rating
  6. paste the rating into the email

Whew! That was a lot of work… and the email still isn’t all that useful because it’s only a bunch of text and links!

What if I told you that you could do all this from your browser without having to actually visit all these sites, paste all those links *and* you’ll get a nice email with a pretty map and restaurant review ratings? That’s crazy-talk, right? … right?

Enter Ubiquity. It’s an awesome experimental technology for Firefox which integrates your online experience. From a single interface, you can leverage the power of all the web services you commonly use, including Rypple! With some help from Atul Varma from Mozilla Labs, lead developer of Ubiquity, I put together a Ubiquity command which allows you to quickly ask a question on Rypple without being on Rypple.

So, if you were searching for ways to improve your communication skills and suddenly remembered “Hey, I just had a client call today. Why don’t I ask Bob how I did?”, you can quickly ask using Rypple, without having to visit our website.  All you’d have to do is invoke Ubiquity (Ctrl-Space) and type ‘rypple-ask’ followed by the question, at least one recipient and at least one attribute.

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How to try the new Rypple Ubiquity command:

  1. Using Firefox, install Ubiquity
  2. If you’re a Mac user, also install Growl
  3. Subscribe to the Rypple Ubiquity Command page
  4. Log into Rypple. You might want to check ‘Remember me’  so that Rypple doesn’t kick you out if you’re inactive.
  5. You can then invoke Ubiquity (Ctrl-Space) and type ‘rypple-ask’ followed by a question, at least one recipient and at least one attribute. Recipients are email addresses with a ‘@’ in front. Attributes are simply key words for the question that you can specify with a ‘#’ in front. E.g. rypple-ask How did I do on the client call today? @bobmycoworker@rypple.com #communication

Welcome to the world of complete and total integration!

Happy Ryppling!

P.S. Please let me know what you think of the Rypple Ubiquity command. Does it mean your needs? If not, what could be improved?

P.P.S If you’re having trouble with Ubiquity (it’s a prototype) you can try the following workaround:

Go to Tools > Options… > Tabs and make sure that “New pages should be opened in:” is set to “a new tab” instead of “a new window”. You might need to restart Firefox.


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4 Responses to “Ubiquitous Rypples”

  1. Stuart — February 5, 2009 @ 7:48 am

    Guys this is amazing. I have been using Ubiquity for a year now. Easily one of the coolest plugins out there. Nice job!

  2. shaver — February 5, 2009 @ 9:24 am

    Cool plugin, indeed.

    (Ubiquity’s not a year old yet. :) )

  3. Austin Tam — February 5, 2009 @ 2:07 pm

    Thanks Stu. This is just the start to complete and total integration ;)

  4. Austin Tam — February 5, 2009 @ 2:10 pm

    We’re VERY excited about Ubiquity ourselves. Even in prototype form, it’s VERY promising. I don’t think the command line format will hold though — it’s too complex for the average user. I can’t wait to see what kind of UI metaphor Aza, Atul and the rest of the Mozilla Labs team will unleash on the world.

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