Firefox-Herdict Integration Pitch

“Is there something I can do to fix this?”

bleh.

“Is there something I can do to fix this?”

“Can other people on the internet see this site?”

“Is there something I can do to fix this?”

For more information, visit the project wiki page.

Firefox's network error pages are familiar to everyone.

But they're not very useful. Most people, if they're like me, see this + wall of text and interpret it to mean "the internet broke and we have + no idea why."

The fundamental question users want answered when they see this is: is + there something I can do to fix this?

Now, the architecture of the internet makes it fairly hard to pinpoint + why a network is down.

As James Fallows explains in his article "The Connection Has Been + Reset" from The Atlantic's March 2008 issue, some national governments + even exploit this to prevent their people from seeing things that the + government doesn't want them to see.

All this means that a "server not found" error page could have been + raised because the user's network connection got unplugged; or it + could be because their local router is down; or it could be because + their ISP is having problems; or it could be because their corporation + is blocking access to the site; or it could be because their + government has outlawed access to that particular site; or it could be + because the site is actually down.

Firefox should do its best to answer that fundamental question: + is there something I can do to fix this and get where I want + to go?

Enter Herdict.

Herdict is a project of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at + Harvard University, a brainchild of Professor Jonathan Zittrain, that + attempts to use crowdsourcing to generate a global picture of internet + connectivity.

Put simply, it uses the power of the internet itself to ask the + question: can other people on the internet see this site? If so, + who?

Firefox can use the answers to these questions to help answer the + user's fundamental question: is there something *I* can do to fix + this?

This Labs Experiment is an attempt at picturing what + Firefox-Herdict-integration might look like. It's intended to be as + unintrusive as possible to the user experience, so it only aims to + improve upon the already notoriously unhelpful network error + pages.

Rather than being a final solution, this Labs Experiment is intended + to build mindshare and catalyze discussion about what a better network + error page might look like, following Mozilla's philosophy of creating + things that do stuff to make the internet better.

- - -

-Firefox's network error pages are familiar to everyone. - -But they're not very useful. Most people, if they're like me, see this -wall of text and interpret it to mean "the internet broke and we have -no idea why." - -The fundamental question users want answered when they see this is: is -there something *I* can do to fix this? - -Now, the architecture of the internet makes it fairly hard to pinpoint -why a network is down. - -As James Fallows explains in his article "The Connection Has Been -Reset" from the Atlantic's March 2008 issue, some national governments -even exploit this to prevent their people from seeing things that the -government doesn't want them to see. - -All this means that a "server not found" error page could have been -raised because the user's network connection got unplugged; or it -could be because their local router is down; or it could be because -their ISP is having problems; or it could be because their corporation -is blocking access to the site; or it could be because their -government has outlawed access to that particular site; or it could be -because the site is actually down. - -Firefox should do its best to answer that fundamental question: is -there something *I* can do to fix this and get where I want to go? - -Enter Herdict. - -Herdict is a project of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at -Harvard University, a brainchild of Professor Jonathan Zittrain, that -attempts to use crowdsourcing to generate a global picture of internet -connectivity. - -Put simply, it uses the power of the internet itself to ask the -question: can other people on the internet see this site? If so, who? - -Firefox can use the answers to these questions to help answer the -user's fundamental question: is there something *I* can do to fix -this? - -This Labs Experiment is an attempt at picturing what -Firefox-Herdict-integration might look like. It's intended to be as -unintrusive as possible to the user experience, so it only aims to -improve upon the already notoriously unhelpful network error pages. - -Rather than being a final solution, this Labs Experiment is intended -to build mindshare and catalyze discussion about what a better network -error page might look like, following Mozilla's philosophy of creating -things that do stuff to make the internet better. +

diff -r 37a4eb5f9695 -r 7b67d3e40479 js/ff-herdict-preso.js --- a/js/ff-herdict-preso.js Wed Feb 10 10:49:43 2010 -0800 +++ b/js/ff-herdict-preso.js Wed Feb 10 12:07:27 2010 -0800 @@ -34,61 +34,82 @@ * * ***** END LICENSE BLOCK ***** */ +// This function synchronizes any visual HTML content with the current +// position of audio content. It's a generic function that can be used +// to provide e.g. the visuals for a narrated slide-show, or +// subtitles for a movie. +// +// The options object should contain the following keys: +// +// audio - CSS selector that points to a single HTML5 +//