Juice Makes You Smarter, Faster (If You're on Firefox 3)
We've all been there. You started reading something on the Web, saw something interesting in the article, searched for it, wound up somewhere else, and after about 12 hops you've forgotten exactly what it was you were looking for. If only there were some way to select that topic midstream and have the information automagically appear for you, without disrupting your workflow or sending you traipsing off into the wilds of the Web.
If that sounds familiar, you may need a shot of Juice, a new Firefox 3 add-in currently in public beta from Linkool Labs, that makes researching Web content as easy as click-and-drag.
Juice is ridiculously easy - and addictive - to use. Simply highlight the text into which you want to delve - or grab a link - and drag it ever so slightly. That's the only cue Juice needs to go to work. And suddenly your sidebar is filled with research results from Google, Wikipedia, YouTube, Google Blogsearch, and more.
Juice also adds the ability to capture images and video to a personal library - similar to some of the functionality found in Twine - enabling users to access those assets regardless of what they're doing in the main browser window.
How does Juice accomplish this? The Linkool team describes Juice as an "intelligent discovery engine," highlighting:
This engine, comprised of a natural language processing system and a dictionary management system, helps to evolve the semantic web by connecting keywords with the most relevant, rich content from third-party web services.
Of course, the mention of the "Semantic Web" caught our attention. It's no secret that we here at ReadWriteWeb are fans of the Semantic Web, but unfortunately, we often find the concept reduced to a buzzword that - once implemented in a product - has a hard time living up to the hype.
Juice seems to avoid some of the more traditional stumbling blocks of Semantic apps by taking a very top-down approach focused on a distinct data set. Confining the activity to user-selected terms, Juice manages to sidestep issues that have plagued apps which attempt to consume and use much larger sets of information. Smaller chunks of data allow Juice to return more compelling results.
Room for Improvement
But for all its ingenuity and ease-of-use, Juice isn't without its shortcomings.
As mentioned, it's currently only available on Firefox 3, meaning users of other popular browsers will have to continue their current searching rigamarole or convert to Firefox. That, and it's part and parcel of the browser on which you install it. There doesn't seem to be any synching with a Web account to allow you to use your data on different machines.
When it comes to where you search for information, there doesn't seem to be any way of customizing the resources that Juice chooses to search. So if you prefer IceRocket or Ask to Google Blogsearch, you're out of luck.
If you're into customizing your look and feel, Juice doesn't appear to have any options there, either. The information pane always appears on the right of the browser. I couldn't find any way to move it to the bottom, where I would prefer to have it.
Based on what Juice delivers, none of those are showstoppers, especially given that Juice is currently in beta. Those shortcomings aren't going to prevent many users from taking it for a spin and likely integrating it into their browsing experience.
The simplicity of use is definitely there. As is the compelling depth of research that occurs with a simple click-and-drag. Combine that functionality with Juice's ability to let users work and research without disrupting their workflow, and Juice appears to be a worthwhile addition for any Firefox 3 user.
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I've been using Juice for a few months (since an early beta), and not only has it come a long way, but it has made my web browsing so much more meaningful. Being able to search for information without leaving what you're doing is one of those things that you don't really appreciate until you've been doing it for a while.
I'm a fan.
My Juice bar appears on the right side of my screen, which is not where I want it. But then my bookmarks and other history appear on the right of the screen, where I want them (changed with css). So I suppose Juice decides to be "on the other side".
Sorry. It appears on the LEFT side of my screen, which is not where I want it.
Sounds promising. My only gripe with other drag-and-drop plugins that I have used previously are that they replace the built in uses that I find very powerful.
The main example that I can think of is that if I want to perform a local search I usually double click on a word to highlight it and then drag it to the site's own search box, such as the RWW one you have at the top of this page; no need to reach for the keyboard and use crtl-c, crtl-v, or god forbid rick-click.
Also I drag links and words to the tab bar to open them in a new tab. Firefox is even clever about URLs that are not proper links these days; just try double clicking on the word GOOGLE and dragging it to some free space on the tab bar and the Google homepage will open in a new tab.
lol @ rick-click I think I just coined a new meme.
You know what I meant.
Great article! I've got a new tool in my web browsing arsenal.
I think I like it, we'll see. Drag and drop seems a bit of a pain and I've not found myself using things like this before, but so be it. Maybe I'll teach Multiclutch to perform some of this with multifinger swipe.
Seems to mess up my Google Reader, seems to interfere with keyboard input or something because I can't use "J" to read articles with it enabled. I know that might sound weird... Looks interesting, but anything that disrupts my feed read'n gets instantly disabled...
Hi notafish - yes, you are correct, our sidebar is currently inserted after the appcontent in a way that places it on the opposite side of the history/bookmark container (which, under normal circumstances, is inserted before the appcontent), irrespective of the css ordering (whether ltr or rtl). We are currently looking at providing an additional option in the settings menu for the user to decide where to place the sidebar, no matter where the history/bookmarks container is. We'll post any feature updates on our blog, so please check back often!
Thanks for your input, and for trying us out!
Hmm I tried downloading Juice but get stuck on Fire fox 3. The latter i did download but Juice does not recognize that and i dont see a button or something to download Juice after that. Pls help. THX!
Not compatible with Firefox 3.1b1...
Never heard about this before , installed now. I'll discover more about this & be right back. Looks like useful resource for me :)
Many thanks.
Juha - we're testing Juice on 3.1b1 as we speak. As soon as we feel comfortable releasing it, we will! Please check our blog/tweet for release updates. Thanks for your interest in Juice!
Mark Tong
chaka - what version of Firefox are you using? We don't support 3.1.* right now, but very soon will. If you use a Firefox-equivalent (e.g. iceweasel), you may need additional tweaking to download Juice. Go to http://linkool.biz/contact and drop us an email, and we'll help you from there! Thanks for your interest in Juice!
Mark Tong
Can anyone tell me how to get rid of the juicer icon in the sidebar at firefox launch? (it's very big and very orange)
Great list. We are currently looking at providing an additional option in the settings menu for the user to decide where to place the sidebar, no matter where the history/bookmarks container is. We'll post any feature updates on our blog, so please check back often!
Thanks for your input, and for trying us out!