> I *do* agree with Harmon when he says "The larger problem
> with wireless Web comes in the lack of audio-ized files.
> Voice-delivery (in lieu of text that would be too long for
> small screens) has a future. This view requires looking at
> potential content through a different set of lenses than most
> webbies have grown up with, though. How many of them
> know their way around a recording booth? The good stuff
> will probably come out of the digital-telephony area, not
> the standard webmaster milieu.
I might be alone and crazy on this, but I think audio as a method of
delivering web content is a fantastically terrible idea.
If I have the concept right, some people are proposing that a web page could
be essentially audio in format, thus side stepping the problem of tiny
mobile screens with their lousy display. For some stuff it's logical, like
if you are going to order music on-line you obviously want to hear it first.
I can imagine on line books and whatnot. But not to any extent greater than
audio is being used on the "regular" web (by "regular" I mean non-mobile.)
Who would want to hear URL links told to them over a speaker? "Press one if
you want to go here, press two if you want to go there..." Don't people
already get that on phones, and doesn't it annoy the heck outta you?
I can hear the rumblings at the back of the room from the people who think
I'm not being "visionary" enough by discounting audio as a content delivery
method so soon. But I think there are quantifiable differences between the
audio and visual mediums which make trying to do the work of one with the
other rather silly. You can scan a screen of stock quotes - even if you have
to use the scroll bar - much quicker than you can have them read to you,
even if you have the ability to keep pressing "next" when you discover you
aren't hearing what you want to know.
I'll stick to my guns on the theory that if a phone can be given a screen
about the size of a Palm Pilot V, in colour, with the resolution of a
standard photograph of about the same size, then most of the problems
associated with small screen interfaces will be resolved. The remainder of
the problem of getting the data onto a screen that size is the same problem
that will always exist and exists on interfaces of any size - design, layout
and artistry.
My .02$
Dave
Received on Tue Jul 18 10:32:08 2000