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Do You Really Want to Meet People on the Web?
Wolfspelz writes "Do you want to meet people on Web pages? The Jabber Virtual Presence project makes people aware of each other on the Web. Just like you are aware of other people in the real world anywhere you go, the virtual presence makes you aware of others on the same virtual locations. The project uses Jabber/XMPP as the transport protocol for virtual presence. Jabber conference components serve as presence servers. The code is GPL/LGPL. The Virtual Presence Protocol extensions are open and documented. The virtual presence system including the LLuna2 client is designed to protect the privacy and prohibit any indecent use, be it commercial use, advertising, or profiling. But: do you want to meet people on the Web at all?"
I'd say that the more opportunity to meet interesting people in this world, the better, and this just improves the odds of randomly meeting people your probably wouldn't otherwise have to opportunity to meet.
As long as it doesn't supplant actual real world interaction with people as a primary social outlet, that is..
All of these services are just an excuse to gather a huge number of e-mail addresses and connections between people, and then to use that network to market stuff. If there were a service that banned marketing and advertising messages, maybe it would be worth doing. As it is, it almost acts like the "in-crowd", where if you buy what they want, magically you're the most popular. However, so what if people want to meet people online? How is that worse than in an establishment serving alcohol, where everyone's not themselves anyhow?
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If it was on the same level as Yahoo Messenger and AIM. There are a lot of different types of people that would be on there then. It would be a little different.
My guess is that it is mostly nerds using it now. I work with thousands of nerds. Do I really need to meet any more near me?
Evolution or ID?
Why not? It is just another medium to meet people. In fact it can sometimes be better. You might get to know the person, and like the person so that you would want to meet the person. This does not have to be for romance, but could be for friends. Back in the day when local BBS' were big - we would have get-to-gethers. I never did it to try and go out with a girl, but it was nice to meet the people I would play MUD's with. I have met a number of people from the web. Some nice, some not so nice. Some extremely hot, some extremely not :)
I think it is a new medium - nothing wrong with it. People use newspaper ads, bars, clubs, parks, restaurants. Others may not have the time (i have been in this position) to go and hang out at these places all the time.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
But: do you want to meet people on the Web at all?"
could easily be rendered as:
But: do you want to meet people at all?"
For a lot of people, this involves some sort of a negative answer, one way or another. Some folks have a low tolerance of human beings, depending on circumstances.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
IRL I'm sitting here at my keyboard typing this. The internet is no magical Alter Ego machine. I've met people from the internet, it's no different from meeting people in 'real life'. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad.
Why not ask the question: Do you want to see anyone in REAL LIFE at all?
*DrugCheese rants*
Having met several people in person that I first met through e-mail or chat (fellow programmers and co-workers from remote locations), I've noticed several interesting dynamics from virtual communications relative to those of "real life." Some of these are obvious, such as judging people by how well they express their ideas and opinions in words (instead of by their appearance or personal hygiene).
Others are more subtle, and are apparent only over time, such as the speed with which someone responds. Do they think quickly, but type slowly? Do they fly off the handle and just post the first thing that comes to mind, or do they carefully consider every response?
In most cases, I have found that getting to know someone online, over time, gives you a better perspective on how that person sees themselves. If they have low self-esteem, that will come across (eventually). If they're confident and authoritative, that will show (again, over time). If they're egotistical and full of themselves, they'll have microsoft.com in their e-mail address.
However, you *can* get to know someone really well on one level (or in a given context), and completely miss another. For instance, I used to manage several mailing lists about Borland Delphi. One of the moderators for the list, named Jo, was moving from one part of South Africa to another, and was offline for a couple of weeks. I had known Jo for years as a serious gearhead when it came to Delphi Database programming. After I asked one of the other moderators about Jo by saying, "Where is he moving?", I discovered that Jo was, in fact, a woman.
At that point, Jo's signature line took on new meaning (and I got a much-needed lesson in gender stereotyping): "I am a programmer - I don't do relationships."
Tim
How is this any better than The Palace? The Palace is chat software with avatars, sound, interactive environments, and its own nifty RPN scripting language, ipscrae. It was so sucessful that it even made it to the cover of Time, but it faded after it was bought by a company that tried to push its use in the corporate work space.
In real life, are you meeting people, or are you meeting personas, masks, and liars? Online really isn't any different than the real world. Other than the absence of a physical form, the people are still the same. Liars online are still liars in real life. People who are honest and friendly online are honest and friendly in real life. Anonymity can change how people act, but it doesn't change who they are.
If people can send messages, there will be advertising. And believe me, a few months of no earnings compared with the ones that DO have commercial use will have them thinking about that vitamuscle or what have you as a sponsored "special friend".
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When you meet someone face to face, there is much more polite and civil (hopefully) openings.
It is more genuine.
The person in an internet chatroom could be
a paedophile for all I know. I can't use my intuition to determine this because there IS no presence. This is just another fad that would waist my time.
I don't believe in on-line presence.
If its not someone I already know in person, I would rather talk to AI online - honestly!
Because I have speech and hearing impediments so it is hard for me to socialize in person. I used to socialize on chat BBS' before Internet was hot. Now, I use IMs, e-mails, etc. to socialize. Also, it keeps my physical appearance invisible to new people that don't know me.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
As I understand it, this is like being able to turn to a shopper on the same isle as you in a retail store and ask what they think of product XYZ, or turning to the person behind you at a rock concert and saying "Man can Neal Peart play those drums!"
/. for that?).
I can see this being helpful, but at the same time, I would think the desired web default would be to ignore the person who doesn't know what it is they are looking for (isn't Google for that?) or wants to talk about the video stream I am trying to enjoy (isn't IRC for that?).
Basically I think it is a cool application of technology, but if people want to talkabout a website, they already can (isn't
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
- Jabber ended up being too slow, though, so we built a more specialized message router
...
While I understand the intended meaning -- that Jabber was not suitable for your application -- I dislike (1) the implication that Jabber is somehow inherently slow (what was slow? The Jabber4R client library? The Jabber server? Which server? Or the architecture?), and (2) the fact that you are providing no new information, but merely throwing out some vague, critical remark about Jabber of no use to anyone, leading up to a shameless plug for your own unrelated product. What was your point, man?How about doing a design comparison between Cougaar and Jabber?
omg j00 r a gurl.
feel special, yet?
When I was in high school, used IRC. A lot.
The people I met were great. we formed close friendships, and met occasionally in real life. Also, it was fun being able to tell people that of my friends, more than half of them were a complete mystery to me in all of the normal ways that people identify with others. I didn't know their names, their gender, their skin colour, where they lived, what they did for a living, how old they were, what they looked like, etc. I just knew what we talked about. And it was good.
Then some of my friends started using ICQ. I could handle that, it was fun having quick text messages outside of IRC, or with the people that couldn't handle the concept of online chat (it really is a skill). It wasn't bad.
Then people switched to MSN. I don't know why. I still contend that there is no advantage over icq, and that people should still be using that. But ah well. Anyhow, the point is that because of the way that msn works, I can't handle online chat anymore. The interaction process with other people is overwhelming. Everything flashes, and beeps, and dings, and jumps up out of the bottom of my screen. It's like I'm being attacked from 7 different directions everytime I log on. Not to mention, most people think I'm a dick and lose interest if I haven't responded to them wihtin 2 seconds.
Now, I use my computer to browse blogs (and slashdot and fark, whish loosely fit into that description) and do my homework.
It used to be a tool for interaction, now interacting sucks balls.
ah well, what are you going to do?
It could be interseting to meet people who are all, say, hanging out at a site for a given game or something along those lines. Or who are hanging out at a specific message board.
But i also don't see any real serious potential for this to "change" anything. Take for example users of a given product like a printer. How many people "hang out" at the printer's website? How many people just browse around for hours at adobe's site, for example?
The biggest advantage this brings is that it can tighten community based web sites a little bit, but that's about it, i would think, save in relatively rare cases like when a product's site has a very active forumn.
"Nothing excites jaded grandmasters like a Theoretical Novelty" - Dominic Lawson