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Technology Stocks : PC Sector Round Table -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jonathan Bird who wrote (94)	3/20/1998 1:14:00 PM
From: Pierre-X	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 2025

Re: Vidding; AUI; Buddy List; Killer apps Here's where you and I disagree about videoconferencing. You think it's going to be a killer app. I think it's going to be an add-on, like power locks on cars. Everybody gets power locks because it only costs you $50 extra, but nobody buys a car to have power locks. Nobody is going to buy anything just to have videoconferencing, but once you have a computer, and high bandwidth, and it only costs $50 extra to have videoconferencing, then everybody will have it. You said: ...the fact that its simply provides better communication. People give of communication in there voice, facial expressions and gestures. People simply like to talk to other people they can see and hear. Let me tell you the Achilles Heel of videoconferencing: It's physically impossible to have eye contact. Think about it. This is something that I didn't realize myself until I started testing systems. The value of looking in the horse's mouth. People may like to talk to people they can see and hear but they won't shell out $1000 for it, until there are productivity gains from the technology. (Check out "Crossing the Chasm" by Geoffrey Moore.) - - - I use ICQ, and I've tried AOL's IM. I think ICQ is more powerful and better designed, but I haven't really studied it so thats just an opinion. I think instant messaging will never be a big thing in business, because it is exactly what you DONT want when you're working -- constant interruptions. (Check out "Dynamics of Software Development" by Jim McCarthy.) However, your point about being able to archive all communications including voice and video is interesting. I don't have to tell you the storage demands for video. We don't even have that for voice yet, but let's think about that. Suppose your phone (or whatever voice-comm system you're using e.g. MS NetMeeting) has the ability to log all your calls and store them relationally. Pretty powerful. Let's go the step beyond that -- I'll wager the typical office worker's time is 90% phone and computer. AUI strikes again! What if your telephone conversations were automatically transcribed and stored relationally in TEXT form? Jesus! Total convergence of email and voice! - - - You said: <<What if you could speed up that process by a factor of three?>> Then you could theoretically spend 1/3 as much time in front of a computer. Come on. We all spend all day computing. Tripling our interface speed with the machine does NOT reduce our use of it, it increases our productivity. It goes even beyond that. Unchaining us from the keyboard also increases our mobility by orders of magnitude. You can compute in the car, in bed, at the beach, while working out ... anywhere. Notebook computer manufacturers claim this kind of thing for their stuff, but I use a notebook and it's still pretty restrictive. You said: ...when it comes we might actually have a use for our 5000 MHz Pentium XVIIs. That's the point I'm making, and that Intel is missing. Hey, if I come across as bellicose at all it's totally unintentional. For this kind of discussion is the reason and the only reason why I am here. Jonathan, there is fantastic, are your postings, with you. I love you man! <g> God bless, PX