Voice in Second Life
How it will work:
As I understand it, voice chat will be available for both proximal chat (out loud talking to people in a certain vicinity) as well as for group IM and one-on-one IM.
Island owners will be able to opt in our out of the function on their land but may have to increase their monthly maintenance (which might effect those of us with education land who pay a reduced maintenance fee?).
The announcement was not clear about multiple concurrent voice sessions (if you’re voice IMing with one person and proximal chatting with another) or whether individuals who don’t own land will have to change their accounts to make voice possible.
Obviously, there are still many questions to be answered.
The implications:
It would be tough to cover all the possible ramifications of integrated voice chat so I’m going to focus most on the educational implications. Please note that since so much of the mechanics of this new service are unknown that much of what I predict here may need to be revised as more information is known
Status: One of my biggest concerns is that voice chatting will somehow be perceived as more “valid” than text chat. What I mean is that once voice chat is widely available, those who choose to stick with text chat (for whatever reason) may be perceived as being dishonest or deceptive. Folks who stick to text may have very valid reasons for doing so (disabilities, lack of microphone etc.) but will that matter?
Cost: Though voice was a much-demanded feature of SL I can’t help but wonder if it’s a well-played ploy to get all land owners paying the new maintenance fee. Those of us who built islands before the increase are still paying the old maintenance price of $150 a month. New island owners pay $295 a month. A significant increase especially when many educators are working with funds from grants. Suddenly our money goes half as far and the maintenance budget we had for a year will only cover six months. this is a MAJOR issue for many. Of course, we can always decide not to enable voice on our islands and be safe from the increase but paying for functionality has never been part of the SL model and I think it goes directly against their philosophy. What’s next? A fee for each avatar over 40 hosted on an island? I don’t like unexpected increases in price and I don’t like systems which point out the “haves” and “have nots” in such a dramatic way.
Practicality and Social Implications: One of the huge benefits of text chat in class is that everyone can talk at once. Turn taking can go out the window in favor a discussion free-for-all. Not all groups can function this way but I’ve found it very beneficial for discussion in my classes. Voice simply isn’t practical when more than a handful of people are part of the conversation. It’s difficult to know who is speaking (which is important for teaching, after all where does that participation grade come from if we don’t know who’s talking?). Even more bizarre, imagine being in a public space with spatial voice enabled, a small group discussion, for example. You’re chatting away with those near enough to hear and suddenly a stranger comes in and disrupts the conversation. Can we mute just him? If we set him to ignore will we still hear him? See his text chat? Will that ignore work if we’re not the land owners?
In addition, one would think there would have to be a limit to how many people can be on the channel. A dance club with 40+ avatars whoopin’ it up would drown out any music being played. The subtle sounds of running water, chirping birds, or wind will be gone in favor of chitterchatter of folks around you. One can hope that we’ll be able to turn voice on and off so we can enjoy peace when we want.
I also wonder if there will be any visible sign that someone has voice enabled. Imagine being a “voice chatter” and walking up to a stranger: “Hello! Hello? HELLO!?” and not knowing that they can’t hear you.
Logging: Logging is a major concern for educators. We like to keep records of discussion, not just with students but with other educators, for our own benefit and for the benefit of others. Audio records, if they’re possible, are difficult to transcribe and can result in huge files. So much of the great discussion will be lost in time unless everyone agrees to use text chat.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not against voice chat in Second Life. For many things voice chat will be better. Presenters will be able to free their hands from typing and instead perform gestures as they speak. Giving new folks instruction via voice might be much easier. We can learn so much about someone from their voice, their accent (for better or worse) and this might increase the establishment of trust relationships. I could go on and on about the potential benefits but I think they’re much more self-evident than the potential hurdles that we’ll have to navigate to overcome potential problems.
How do you feel about voice chat in Second Life? Leave a comment. Let’s start a discussion.
February 27th, 2007 at 2:17 pm
Hi Sarah,
Great article! I’m posting a similar one on my blog and referencing you and ZDNet (of course).
One thing. I think your link to the ZDNet article might be a bit off. it sent me to the second page of the article first.
I’m showing http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6162410.html
as the main link to it, just thought you’d like to know.
Thanks again for the news, I guess we’ll see what happens when this all get rolled out how problematic it will be :/
February 27th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
[…] This will break interesting ground for Second Life, and has already angered part of the virtual community, stating that it will shatter part of the illusion of the virtual world. My personal option is that the female community might take a dip as we find out that some of those cute avatars you’ve been flirting with may indeed be men. (I’ll leave the debate on gender play out of this post, as I am not an authority on topic.) There are other reasons this might cause issue with SL users, as brought up in Intellagirl’s latest post, that could cause a divide between those with disabilies or lacking the proper technology. […]
February 28th, 2007 at 2:36 am
I agree with your concerns. Introducing voice as a generalized feature in SL will change the whole thing completely.
Voice integration will of course cut off a great part of role playing possibilities (not just gender switching), as avatars serve much as a kind of projection screen for our fantasies. On the other hand, of course, new possibilities of “enacting” a character are opened up.
But if I imagine what it will sound like at the (in)famous german Biergarten for example, I guess there will come up a rather vulgar flair in many places. In the end, people want to be shiny and beautiful in SL; they wouldn’t want to appear as the everyday people crowd they actually are, (as they definitely will due to their non-trained voices and pronounciation (accents etc.) - or would they?
Then again, and for the same reason, a new quality of personal relations could emerge. Voice is not just a tone, it’s a trace of human’s body which creates a sort of immediate ‘presence’. If we think of the (potentially) “rich experience” of a telephone chat - like talking fo hours with friends or people you like - relationships in SL will possibly shift from rather weak to rather stronger ties (I know there are strong ties there right now, but its main character seems more like a rather anonymous IRC chat to me).
Maybe it had been a better idea to integrate voice chat as avatar based instead of land based. There could be voicechat-groups where people would automatically enter a vc when meeting in one place, etc.
March 1st, 2007 at 5:26 am
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