Interesting post on the OpenHabitat blog (OpenHabitat is a JISC-Funded project) discussing an in-world meeting that went "wrong" and the coping strategies that attendees adopted to cope with the "wrongness".
The tentative conclusion is that in-world voice should be used to augment in-world chat (i.e. that chat remains the primary communication method but that the noises-off provided by voice can be used to indicate the status of the various participants).
Nice idea... especially for those, like me, who don't like in-world voice much.
It reminds me a little of the story we heard at the wrap-up meeting of the Learning from Virtual Worlds: Teaching in Second Life project about students who self-organised themselves into using in-world chat for communication and in-world voice to share music with each other.
Showing posts with label chat. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chat. Show all posts
Friday, 15 August 2008
Wednesday, 28 February 2007
SL to get voice support
This has been on the cards for a while but is now confirmed in a post on the SL blog - though, not yet, in any code. I think a beta is coming soon.
Oddly, the addition of voice to SL is something that I'm finding it hard to get really excited about - even though I know I should. Yes, chat and IM are limiting as the main communication channels in SL, particularly in situations like group meetings and presentations. On the other hand, I suspect that for many people one of the attractions of SL is the ability to leave RL behind on entering. Much harder to do if you take, or are expected to take, your voice with you.
My personal view is that the addition of voice will change the SL experience quite fundamentally... change it for the better in many ways, but one can see from the comments after the SL blog entry that it's not a change that is to everyone's taste.
Having said all that, the 3-D aspects of the way voice is being integrated, to give a better immersive experience, seems to be very interesting. And definately of interest and value in the context of any meetings taking place in SL. Chat conversations between anything more than about four people simply do not work well curently.
All in all, it'll be very interesting to see how voice integration works out.
Oddly, the addition of voice to SL is something that I'm finding it hard to get really excited about - even though I know I should. Yes, chat and IM are limiting as the main communication channels in SL, particularly in situations like group meetings and presentations. On the other hand, I suspect that for many people one of the attractions of SL is the ability to leave RL behind on entering. Much harder to do if you take, or are expected to take, your voice with you.
My personal view is that the addition of voice will change the SL experience quite fundamentally... change it for the better in many ways, but one can see from the comments after the SL blog entry that it's not a change that is to everyone's taste.
Having said all that, the 3-D aspects of the way voice is being integrated, to give a better immersive experience, seems to be very interesting. And definately of interest and value in the context of any meetings taking place in SL. Chat conversations between anything more than about four people simply do not work well curently.
All in all, it'll be very interesting to see how voice integration works out.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
