[Asterisk-Users] asterisk based bbs

[Joe Greco]

> Em Dom 28 Nov 2004 13:55, Michael Vogel escreveu:
> > lenz schrieb:
> > > I was wondering: anybody ever wrote an asterisk based bbs? not a bbs
> > > about asterisk, but a vocal bbs that runs on asterisk, so that people
> > > can call, hear the discussion of the day, leave messages, etc.
> >
> > It doesn't really make sense to me. It only makes sense for some very
> > limited fields. e.g. when somebody cannot read or write (he hasn't
> > learned it or is blind). Everybody else could use the computer. Most
> > people who would use such a system do have a computer at home I guess.
> 
> A lot of people thought the same before WWW, when text based contents were 
> the basis of networks.

The real problem with bulletin board systems (speaking as someone who
authored bulletin board systems back in the days of 110 and 300 baud) is
bandwidth.  Information transfers slowly at low bit rates, and we optimized
the hell out of the online experience, doing things like shortening the
message headers ("To:", "Fr:", "Su:", etc), making sure that character
inputs to move on to the next message could be entered at any time, using
short menus but always leaving more detailed help options available, etc.

A vocal BBS would inherently involve a very slow transfer of information, 
and there's just so much time people are willing to commit to 
participating.

The Internet as a textual medium moving towards graphics is a very
different thing; the human eye inherently has a *huge* amount of bandwidth
available, so adding graphics to the Web only caused us to keep increasing
the technological transmission speeds so that people would not get bored
waiting for the computer to download all the graphics.

To put it another way:

I can pull up a listing of messages in a folder and eyeball them 50 at a
time, looking for interesting things.  It takes me less than 10 seconds 
to make it through the subject list.

If I had to listen to 50 subjects, even at a mere five seconds per, that
would involve nearly five minutes of time.

This aspect will generally limit the amount of time people are willing to
spend participating.  A compelling purpose would help, of course, and in
fact might be required for a vocal BBS to enjoy much popularity.



You know, I think I've just come upon another reason I hate voicemail so
much, and usually listen to it with half an ear while I'm doing something
much more productive - like reading e-mail.  :-)

... 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.