Juice's sidebar supper
Posted on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 by Thijs Jacobs
The browser is the new Operating System; we’re not claiming it, you guys are! And we couldn’t agree more. That’s why we believe we got it right by casting our intelligent discovery engine, Juice, in the form of a browser plugin. Building an application on top of the browser allows us to do things that web-based applications can not (although we have some exciting goodies coming up in that area too). Unlike a web-based application that is always parked under a URL, our plugin is always accessible and always available to the user as long as the browser is open. Even if the user chooses to hide Juice, we’re always standing by to help the user find that juicy piece of rich content.
By delivering rich content inside the browser’s sidebar, Juice enables you, the user, to keep browsing while the rich content is neatly juxtaposed nearby. For example, you can now watch your favorite YouTube videos in the sidebar while you keep browsing in your normal browser window, with both your browsed content and Juice’s rich content available in plain view.
In order to make Juice the friendliest piece of UI out there, we implemented several ways with which you can trigger Juice. You could try highlighting text and dragging it (just a bit or all the way), dragging an image, or grabbing the tab that pops up next to a flash video. You could also try right-clicking content and bring up several Juice options in a context menu as well. Moreover, Juice cleverly listens to what you search for in the browser’s default search box, and finds you that juicy piece of rich content just when you may need it.
Many of our competitors choose to bother you with in-text pop-ups or rollovers that, in our opinion, disrupt your browsing experience. We strongly believe that you should be able to browse the web uninterrupted, and enjoy a rich experience only when you want it. Pre-defined pop-up content (or, horrors!, pop-ups with nothing but ads) just won’t pass the user-friendliness muster with us.
Our public release is coming very soon! In the mean time, we welcome you to sign up for our private beta at juiceapp.com (try the unlock code juiceblog, for which we’ve just extended more invites).
Cross-posted on Linkool Labs.