Unless you haven’t logged into SL in the past few days, you’ll be aware that voice is now part of the main grid browser. It remains an optional download at present but it’s certainly ramping up. New World Notes are running a reader poll on voice take-up and its early results are interesting:
It’s no great surprise that there’s initial resistance to voice from well-established SL users and there’ll no doubt be some technical and etiquette issues over coming weeks with the wider use of voice. New SL users will probably take to voice more quickly. I don’t think anyone’s making claims of text-based communication dying out though. There are som many areas where being able to type your thoughts is the superior option. Eventually the two will probably co-exist fairly amicably but in the short term I think lots of land parcels will have voice switched off.
What do you think? Don’t forget the Voice forum on our discussion forums, moderated by Juko Tempel.
Even though I’m a trained DJ, I don’t particularly like the sound of my own voice, I reckon I sound like a nasal Leyland Brother [take your pick on which one].
Voice might be fine for two, but when there’s lag involved you’d get a lot of voices talking over each other, creating something that sounds like a b-grade american chat show where two or more women are talking over each other and nobody can understand a thing they say.
I tried it with one person, and it was pretty desperate, I couldn’t understand him, it stuttered worse than Max Headroom on caffeine.
Another friend who I skyped with turned out to have a very [VERY]thick southern US accent… I tried hard to follow what was said, but it wasn’t easy.
I’m not using audio unless someone wants to talk about something specific with me and it’s strictly one on one… but I’d still rather type.
Wolfie!
Even though I’m a trained DJ, I don’t particularly like the sound of my own voice, I reckon I sound like a nasal Leyland Brother [take your pick on which one].
Voice might be fine for two, but when there’s lag involved you’d get a lot of voices talking over each other, creating something that sounds like a b-grade american chat show where two or more women are talking over each other and nobody can understand a thing they say.
I tried it with one person, and it was pretty desperate, I couldn’t understand him, it stuttered worse than Max Headroom on caffeine.
Another friend who I skyped with turned out to have a very [VERY]thick southern US accent… I tried hard to follow what was said, but it wasn’t easy.
I’m not using audio unless someone wants to talk about something specific with me and it’s strictly one on one… but I’d still rather type.
Wolfie!
I like the voice feature and will use it often…
I think it needs an easy mute button tho as I can imagine at times it will start to get distracting…
A little bit of everything is the spyce..
I like the voice feature and will use it often…
I think it needs an easy mute button tho as I can imagine at times it will start to get distracting…
A little bit of everything is the spyce..