Khoi Vinh has a good critique of our Ubiquity “marketing” strategy, here: Subtraction 7.1: Marketing in a Minute.
Quoth Khoi Vinh:
While I have great faith in Aza and his team’s talent, and while I’m pretty sure that the product itself is almost certainly worthwhile, I have to be honest: I have no idea what it does. As of this writing, I lack a clear understanding of its function or purpose. This is largely because, though I’ve come across references to it many times, the marketing hasn’t worked for me.
He’s got a point! The main Ubiquity project page does not clearly describe what Ubiquity does. When I try to block out my existing knowledge and read that page with fresh eyes, it sounds like some magical vaporware project that will be all things to all people, cure cancer, and make julienne fries.
It’s hard to communicate what Ubiquity does, partly because “what it does” is in flux. The scope of the Ubiquity project keeps growing. It’s not just a command-line UI for the web, because we’re adding the ability to plug in arbitrary new interfaces. It’s not just a standard for implementing commands in javascript, because we’re adding the ability to plug in multiple feed interpreters for multiple command sources. Thus when we try to describe the goals of the project, or the nature of the software, we have to reach for more and more abstract, generalized language.
It’s worth asking whether we need better marketing. (Keep in mind that when Khoi Vinh says “the marketing hasn’t worked for me”, he’s not using “marketing” in the narrow sense of a commercial marketing strategy — which wouldn’t be entirely applicable to us, since this is a free product — but rather our whole communication strategy: all the ways in which we try to get people interested in Ubiquity.) Even without an effective marketing effort, Ubiquity is spreading by word of mouth. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say it’s spreading by “word of Twitter”. (Lesson: If you want to get popular real fast, include a built-in “Twitter” command with your software.) So is everything fine?
I don’t think everything is fine. By failing to communicate effectively, we’re missing an opportunity to teach people. Aza likes to point out that iPhone commercials actually taught people how to use the iPhone. They were subtle about it, but they showed people doing the two-finger spread and two-finger pinch gestures to zoom in and out, etc. If you had never seen a commercial or any other demonstration before trying an iPhone, you wouldn’t magically know to try that gesture. But if you had seen the commercial, and therefore had the idea of using multitouch gestures planted in your head, then the interface seems very “intuitive”.
There’s hard evidence (which I will discuss in a future post) that Ubiquity as it stands now is in fact very difficult for newbies to grok. We’re limiting ourselves to a self-selecting audience of early-adopters and technophiles who seek out new and unusual interfaces. If we had a more effective marketing and communication strategy, one that planted the idea of the interface into people’s heads before they started trying to use the software, maybe it would help us create a better experience for newbies.
So, question for the readers: If you’re a Ubiquity user, how would you describe the essence of what it is and what it does, in 25 words or less? I have some ideas, but I want to hear yours first.
Not The User's Fault 
February 9, 2009 at 9:40 pm
Whatever you do, don’t say “command line”. It’s not really accurate, and it’s not a desirable thing to be associated with.
“Language-based interface” or “linguistic UI” is more accurate and less repulsive.
Shouldn’t you be finishing it before you start marketing it, though?
February 9, 2009 at 9:43 pm
Not an Ubiquity user, but from all I’ve seen an heard on Planet Mozilla and other places, I’d succinctly call it “An Experiment in Alternative User Interaction”.
February 9, 2009 at 10:17 pm
Ubiquity is a shortcut for the web universe.
It is a browser extension, it is a tool helping the user retrieving information and doing tasks with a natural language based interface.
The user can personalize the graphic interface and can extend the language.
Ubiquity understands the language and suggests a few tasks completing the partial command user.
(Maybe too long… 🙂
February 9, 2009 at 10:27 pm
I’ve had trouble with this recently too, after family members have asked me explain what Ubiquity is and does. One of the things I’ve discovered while thinking about the Ubiquity uplift project, and the new experimental UIs, is that Ubiquity is about tasks. It removes the need to perform the discrete steps needed to accomplish certain tasks. Unfortunately, that still doesn’t really describe anything concrete.
February 9, 2009 at 10:43 pm
“Ubiquity is a collection of easy and quick natural-language-derived commands that act as mashups of web services, thus allowing users to get information and relate the same to current and other webpages. It also allows web users to create new commands without requiring much technical background.”
Longer than 25 words, but it’s a good basis. The best part is that if anyone can make it more concise, anyone can edit it.
February 9, 2009 at 10:53 pm
A guy asked me to do this within 140 chars (don’t need to say where, right?) – i said : “an easier way of doing lots of things” – but i think that a video is worth a thousand images, so we need a screencast that shows only the cool things about ubiquity (not the concept side).
February 9, 2009 at 10:56 pm
Life hacks on acid
February 10, 2009 at 12:10 am
I have never used Ubiquity because I see command line, think DOS and wonder why the hell I would want to type commands when I could click a friggin link, button or bookmark.
Why not just create a local html document with links or javascript commands to go directly to these sites anyways? I’d hate having to type commands all day when I could just click a few links. Makes me think of Ubiquit as a browser without UI.
February 10, 2009 at 4:26 am
As a very limited Ubiquity user, it’s a way to do things in the browser without having to open new tabs and interact with different website interfaces.
In response to Kurt, it’s not about button-clicking for me. But rather, getting rid of the distraction of having to pull myself out of whatever I am focused on at the moment. Instead of having to open a new tab and find a translator, or map, or my calendar, etc, and then find the right text box to enter text into, etc.
The ability to edit webpages directly also introduces new ways to interact with webpages and makes me feel more like a producer, and not merely a consumer.
February 10, 2009 at 8:51 am
“Until now you only watched the web.
With Ubiquity, it is in your hands.
Creating, sharing and mashing up the web is just a verb away.”
After that line, include a screen cast with some usability examples, like embedding images and maps into Gmail (which normally are a pain in the ass and only achievable over the hacky use of gdocs), get the current weather, twitter a message.
After that, everyone should get, what it is about.
But in my opinion, ubiquity is too early to be spread around in public though. It is at a stage, only usable to tech savvy people. It still feels like alpha software and isn’t all that much intuitive from a general user standpoint.
A Tech Savvy one can work magic with it, but your general mom and dad? They wont understand ubiquity, as it is now.
February 10, 2009 at 11:31 am
I see Ubiquity as a mini web app\mashup enviroment.
Basically an application lauching and hosting enviroment.
The messaging should be around those lines.
Although language is key to ubiquity , i think people tend to forget that language is only the input; its not Ubiquity!
Maybe a video of many people one by one quickly saying what they use Ubiquity for would be good to put the message across.
February 10, 2009 at 1:16 pm
“Ubiquity is a web application launching and hosting environment.”
I think the message should be along those lines. Although language is key to Ubiquity, its mainly the input mechanism, its not Ubiquity.
A video of many people one by one saying quickly what they use Ubiquity for would be a cool way to communicate Ubiquity. We should embrace the fact that Ubiquity IS many things to many people.
February 10, 2009 at 4:07 pm
I think it’s also worth talking about The herd as well as ubiquity wouldn’t be half as useful without it. Here’s my take:
“Ubiquity turns Firefox into a mashup platform connecting website content with services on other websites.
The herd is a mashup directory for finding and sharing these mashups”
(26 words according to ubiquity’s word count command.)
Note I’ve deliberately not mentioned language or it being a command line. I think Ubiquity has just as much a future with its mouse interface, so I tried to be interface agnostic in my description.
I also liked Zacqary Adam Green’s description for it’s focus on mashups, connecting content and websites, and the ease of creating (and therefore sharing) new commands.
February 10, 2009 at 4:23 pm
Are you sure that everybody knows the meaning of “mashups”?
February 10, 2009 at 6:30 pm
Ubiquity is the next battle in the computer revolution. Ubiquity integrates disparate web services and data into a humane, seamless workflow. Ubiquity is the future. (25 words)
or simply
Ubiquity is what mashup artists always wished the web was. (10 words)
February 10, 2009 at 8:47 pm
Why all these descriptions containing words only hip geeksters know? (mashup? linguistic? why would your grandmother care about that?)
“Ubiquity lets you tell your browser what to do in plain English.”
(substitute German/French/whatever for English once that is appropriate)
Imagine a non-savvy web user trying to get a map for an address. They will select it, copy it (or write it down) and then search google for “maps”, then use whatever they get (presumably google maps, or maybe yahoo/MS/whatever) and then paste/type the address in there. Whereas in ubiquity, you can select something and type “map”. And it will Just Work. That is what makes it nice. Ordinary users don’t really care about how things get done, they care about how much effort it takes them to get what they want, and the fact that Ubiquity gives you result for little effort is what makes it worthwhile.
February 10, 2009 at 9:54 pm
I really like the last one and would like to add something that hints at the ability to make access to services from other sites easier like:
“Ubiquity helps you to pull information from other websites without interupting your work(flow). Ubiquity lets you tell your browser what to do in plain English.”
February 10, 2009 at 9:55 pm
…for example: “Don’t type and search, type and use”
February 10, 2009 at 10:48 pm
I think in this case, examples are more informative than an abstract description: “Set your Twitter or Facebook status, search Yelp for a place to get lunch, find photos on Flickr, and more – all from one browser plugin.”
Honestly, I get the most use out of Ubiquity when I’m at work and want to do one of the aforementioned without 1) breaking my concentration and 2) the risk of something unprofessional popping up on my screen.
February 11, 2009 at 10:08 pm
It’s a mohawk! http://tinyurl.com/c8sjqn J/K
I think just pitching it as the ultimate power bar is a good catch point for most people. If it’s usable enough people will become hooked.
“command line” and such descriptions can sound intimidating to non-programmers.
February 11, 2009 at 10:28 pm
I think you’re in denial if you are unwilling to simply say that Ubiquity is not a command line interface.
Yes, it might be much more and you might think of it as more than that, but by thinking that way you are unintentionally obscuring the core feature of the product.
You have to overcome your fear of rejection and stand up for what Ubiquity is:
“With Ubiquity, you just type whatever you want to do. Ubiquity does the rest.”
You don’t have to say “command line”, and you definitely shouldn’t say “linguistic” or any other two-bit word like that. Ubiquity is what it is — you type words instead of clicking icons and pulling down menus and
You should be making a case for the ease and elegance of that very concept, not hiding it. You should recognize that the command line has a major barrier to acceptance and that your marketing has to overcome that barrier or else you’ll be dead in the water pretending that it’s not a command line interface.
@Kurt above said this:
I have never used Ubiquity because I see command line, think DOS and wonder why the hell I would want to type commands when I could click a friggin link, button or bookmark.
You have to overcome Kurt’s accurate prejudice about Ubiquity. And you can’t overcome this by denying that users will, indeed, have to type stuff. Rather, you have to convince him that typing can be super easy and powerful.
It would be like iPhone trying to pretend it’s not a phone simply because most of its coolest features are not phone-related.
Or it would be like Twitter not asking “what are you doing”, even though it seems like the vast majority of Twitter usage doesn’t follow that pattern.
Your problem is that you are unwilling to hang your product’s marketing on anything in particular (and especially unwilling to hang it on the potentially-geeky heart of your product),and as a result you are unable to say what your product is.
It’s ironic, I think, that a product which is all about “just say what you want” is unable to “just say what it is”.
Just say it.
February 11, 2009 at 10:50 pm
First, I think that early adopters -> mainstream is a natural adoption pattern so I do not think that there is any fire or any lost opportunity.
Second, I think that part of your problem is that the message needs to be different if you are talking to the firefox end user or the command developer. For the end user @garann is 100% right, the only way to reach them is to take a couple of very specific commands and show how ubiquity as a tool makes those tasks easier.
Third, I think that second leads to the fact that the key is to continue what the team is doing by focusing every week on a set of commands and make those commands better (improving both the implementation and the UI metaphore – I really like where Aza is heading with the firefox 3.2 mocks).
Summary: You guys are doing the absolute right thing. Be patient and continue to focus.
February 12, 2009 at 6:02 pm
Ya I agree with Gijs. Interface, natural language, commands, mashup, are all techie words. Ubiquity needs a new slogan that everyone can understand.
“Ubiquity lets you tell your browser what to do in plain English.”
+1 Vote.
February 12, 2009 at 9:47 pm
I’d just like to point out that Ubiquity has many interfaces, and part of the goal is to play with experimental UIs. The natural language input (command line) is just the most developed and widely used of these UIs. There’s also the mouse-based UI, and a context menu (with additional experimental mockups).
That said, this may or may not make any difference to a lot of people. It also makes Ubiquity a lot more difficult to describe in concrete terms.
February 24, 2009 at 3:18 pm
For me, it’s a command line interface for web services. Beyond just “the Web”, since I mostly use it (for example) for posting to identi.ca, and that’s not really a pure human-facing Web usage (like bringing up and annotating a map or something). If I wasn’t using Ubiquity, I’d use my IM client, rather than the web page.
I like Ubiquity for its…well, ubiquity. I don’t have to flip to a particular tab or window; as long as I’m in the browser, it’s a Ctrl-Space away.
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