Ok, so a lot of MAC people talked about how bad the chat room conference was... and I believe you all. I did a cell phone conversation, which I think was probably a lot better, but don't get discouraged about chat programs, they are really nice for what they do. And, to illustrate, a story:
I was in Turkey last year, and there were a decent amount of events going on in the states that I missed: Tigers going to the world series, midterm elections in which Grandholm and the Democrats won (yay!) and proposal two passed in Michigan (boo!), and, the Michigan vs. OSU football game.
Now, I'm not a huge football fan, but in undergrad, it was such a huge deal, and I was surrounded by people that considered it a huge deal, and it became a big event in my life and in my social group. So, the year after we all part ways, I'm in Turkey, some other friends are in Seattle and one in Boston. They all can watch the game, but I would have no way of finding a station that carried it, and we would have to stay awake until about 4 am to watch the whole thing.
It was a hard time, and my girlfriend and I were really missing home and homey things, so we were kinda depressed, thinking about our friends at home getting together. However, we decided to try and make it work.
We found a webpage that would voice-broadcast the game live, found a conference room in which all of our friends could sign in, found an all-night internet cafe, and got the ESPN game tracker. And we hung out with our friends and watched football.
It was really just what we needed. We lost the game, but the shared experiences and shared conversation, even only text-based, was really great.
However, I'll be surprised if text-based web communication will last more than 5 years. There is already the technology to do large-scale voice conferencing over the web. Skype is a great tool, as is Ventrilo if anyone has used that. The only thing holding it back in my mind is that the big telecommunication companies won't stand for free, web-based communication. But once they see the writing on the wall and jump on board, text chat will become like dial-up. Nice, but outdated.
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2 comments:
Mark, I agree. Chat room days are limited, but I would point out that it has been going strong for a while now. I remember in college getting addicted to mIRC and chatting it up into the night almost every night with people all around the world (mostly rich white people). The problem with the tapped-in was a bad user interface, it did not show you who was typing. It does have many strengths however, for more on this check out my blog and read liz's comments.
Most people I know (other than my parents) have IP phone like Vonage or something similar. You can still have phone service and voice mail and call forwarding, but just pay $10 to $20 and get free long distance in the USA and Canada. I love ventrillo, but can not see it replacing my phone....maybe someone could call me and tell me to get on or we could have planned meetings, but it is not that convenient at times.
Anywho, I agree and am interested in digging deeper into how markets are controlled by large market interests.
Peace,
daver
Mark, thanks for the comments and for the perspective. I was in on a webcast last week and found the chat, as an accompaniment, to be extremely useful. The particpants were all over the place, as in your chat, and also like yours the chat accompanied an event. Hmmm. Let's keep thinking about where and when the tool might have some value.
Daver, you conclude with a very interesting observation/point of inquiry, picking up on the point Mark made. Of course the issue applies in schools as well as online. There are lots of ripe issues to be considered (for profit charter school organizations, "Channel One"--schools get TVs in return for mandatory broadcasting of news shows with commercials to cite but two) with regard to private concerns having their eye on $-making opportunities in the halls of learning...
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