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How Voice Enhances Life Online
Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "A Wall Street Journal article looks at the myriad ways, some surprising, that voice is being integrated into websites and other online tools. Usages range from the familiar--multiplayer gaming--to conducting business transactions and long-distance relationships. 'Ten years ago, the first Web sites were like company brochures, says Jeff Pulver, the VoIP pioneer. 'No one ever expected to have the ability to engage a community virtually. But now a lot of services are becoming a part of the Internet experience, including video, email and voice.'" Update: 08/27 00:12 GMT by Z : Corrected the attempt to 'enchant' and 'enhance' in the same word.
Voice all over the Internet is annoying. I saw a eBay listing recently where the seller had a voice message welcoming you every time the page loaded. The first time was OK every subsequent view was increasingly annoying - and I viewed it every time.
Voice has it's place, and for meetings or tech support it's OK, but in many places it has become the blink tag of the 21st century.
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Co-worker: "Run. Cee emm dee dot ee ex ee!"
Me: "FORMAT! See Colon! Yes! Yes!"
> Ten years ago, the first Web sites were like company brochures, says Jeff Pulver, the VoIP pioneer. 'No one ever expected to have the ability to engage a community virtually...
Jeff: "But now a lot of services are becoming a part of the Internet experience, including video, email and voice."
Me: "Aitch-tee-tee-pee colon slash slash. Goat dot cee ex. And be thankful it's only the pumpkin version these days."
Is it just me, or does anyone else cringe and immediately close the site when they open a website with a loud obnoxious voice?
"Comedy's a dead art form. Now tragedy, that's funny."
now were gonna need a STFU button on our browsers.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
My buddies and I already use Teamspeak for playing games like WoW.
"Simplify, simplify, simplify!" Thoreau
I hope that web designers don't assume that the sound is on and try to transmit important information via voice because on my computer it is not.
Does HTTP, etc. offer anyway for a web page to check if sound is even on? If not, then sound is only useful for useless background audio.
Personally, I think voice is a horrible one-to-many communication medium because it is intrusive and linear -- its not browsable. It's like all those horrible Flash animations that slow down the user to a 1st grade reading level while you wait for the words to swirl/materialize into place.
Please keep the web self-paced (not designer-paced).
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
In games such as WoW alot of the guilds have, ive noticed, started to require voice on guild raids. I do not want to seem like a troll or seem like im poking fun at people, but i really hate it. This is for several reasons. The first being in a game like WoW it ruins the magic. I do not want the lvl 60 warrior im fighting with to sound like a nasiley 18 year old. I want to IMAGINE what they are like irl, based on the style and language that their character uses. Im not a roleplayer, and i can see the convienience of collaboration using voice, but it really does take alot of the "suspension of disbelief" away. Combine that with the fact that its alot harder to ignore people talking about stupid non related shit, than it is to ignore them typing about it.
The other reason is i hate most peoples accents online. thats kind of a personal attack but i'm really not going to take orders from, or have leadership confidence in, some guy who sounds like he lives in his parents basement and starts wheezing when he gets excited.
again, it ruins the ambiance.
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
I think this is a bad idea... sitting at home trying to be inconspicuous browsing the net while the wife is watching TV then all of a sudden... "Welcome to GoatPorn Dot Com.. your interactive Guide to hot.. sexy.. goat action...... !!" Alt F4 ALT F4.. ALT F4 FOR THE LIFE OF GOD!!!!!!!!!