[Asterisk-Users] asterisk based bbs

[Joe Greco]

> You're right! But I wrote that voice will be the next content that we will 
> use in networks environments... 

Um, voice was pretty much the first content used in networked environments
(telegraph doesn't count because it wasn't generally "networked", at least
in an automated manner).  Even today, most of the Internet runs over data
circuits originally envisioned as carrying digital voice traffic.

> of course, the model of exchanging information will upgrade too! 
> 
> You will make a GOOGLE search, just talking with your "voice browser", 
> something like: 
> "- Asterisk _plus_ BBS"
> "- We found 30 references for Asterisk and BBS..."
> 
> You will have your hands free to write an old email to your friens at the 
> same time that you ask and listen for a file stored in your server...
> 
> We gonna have another interface to the information, that means: more 
> information per second(i/s).
> 
> BBS is an old idea, we must update its concepts.

You're talking about a voice based PDA, not a voice based BBS.  BBS is an
old idea, and it's better to not morph its concepts to mean something
completely different than what it has historically meant, when more modern
concepts exist that fit much better.

That all said: There's nothing wrong with that idea.  I'll note that
services like "inphone" currently accomplish some basic features along
this line via a human operator interface; the natural evolutionary
direction for this is to be a more virtualized voice PDA service of some
sort like what you're describing.

Regardless, while it may be handy in some circumstances, it doesn't really
translate to more information per second.  Lots of people have cable modems
and a phone line; I find very few of them running a modem on the phone line
in order to increase their overall transfer speed to the Internet.  The
trivial bit of added speed usually isn't of value.  The speed differential 
between cable and modem is roughly similar to the speed differential 
between eye and ear, and then there's the notable bit that many people 
don't efficiently {read,type} /and/ {listen,speak} simultaneously anyways.
Humans are not naturally capable of concentrating on two things and doing
so proficiently.

I don't think that you're actually going to find people using a voice PDA 
to do Google searches while writing e-mail on their computer...  it's 
easier and faster to simply open another browser tab and go to Google,
and then flip back to e-mail.

Focus on when it'd be /really/ useful and usable:  when you don't have
instant Internet access at hand, but you do have voice communications
(I'll include the visually impaired as a class of people who don't
necessarily have instant Internet access at hand, at least not in the 
same way most other people do)

... JG
-- 
Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net
"We call it the 'one bite at the apple' rule. Give me one chance [and] then I
won't contact you again." - Direct Marketing Ass'n position on e-mail spam(CNN)
With 24 million small businesses in the US alone, that's way too many apples.