Semantic web browser extension BlueOrganizer relaunched tonight with more of the most popular services on the web smartly integrated into an easier to use interface.
The company says its extension is intended to let users browse the web with context and that its semantic technology cuts steps out of search. The basic idea behind AdaptiveBlue’s BlueOrganizer is that it can tell what the web pages you’re looking at are about and it offers you useful links based on the particular subject matter.
It’s been downloaded more than a million times, several times by me personally – yet I don’t find myself using it regularly yet. This new release might change that.
If you’re on a page about music, movies, maps, recipes, wine or any of 24 other topics – then clicking the BlueOrganizer button will bring up a menu of options from topical search options like Yelp on Restaurant pages or LibraryThing on book pages. Tonight I was reading Perez Hilton about Gary Coleman’s recent wedding and in just two quick clicks I was watching Diff’rentStrokes on YouTube. It was a miracle, albeit a small and strange one.
After some testing of the new version I can say that it’s something I’d like to use regularly even if today it’s outside of my typical workflow today.
What’s New
Highlights of the new release include:
- Text level semantic analysis, highlight a section of a page in addition to viewing options based on the whole page.
- A collapsed menu tree. If you’ve seen BlueOrganizer before, it’s a lot easier to use now.
- Integration of Twitter, Tumblr, TinyURL, Google Custom Search Engines and Lijit, among other popular new services.
- Context sensitive icons in the toolbar, when you’re on a video page you’ll see a big icon with a video camera, a book on book pages, signaling a different set of search options.
- Personalized search options based on your browser history and personal selections.
- Microformats support, reading microformats at least.
You can see more on the very nicely designed features page. I wish every startup that contacted us put together announcement resources of this quality.
Concerns
For all the semantic coolness of BlueOrganizer and the potential it has to be really useful, I have not found myself using the several impressive versions of this tool that I’ve seen. It excites me when I look at it the first time, but I don’t find myself coming back to it. Perhaps this time will be different since this new version is simpler and offers more options that I would like to use.
We write about the semantic web a lot here at ReadWriteWeb – and for the sake of disclosure, in case you didn’t know, many of those fantastic posts are written by Alex Iskold, founder of AdaptiveBlue. If you’d like to plug in to the larger discussion about the semantic web, check out our Toolkit for key issues in 2008.
I, though, am wary of semantic technologies that require any but a minimal change in workflow by users. Iskold acknowledges that this is a challenge but argues that right clicked context menus are particularly familiar with users. Let us know if you find yourself remembering to make use of this powerful app’s feature set.
