So, a couple years ago I began to pioneer a new form of telecommunication, and the personal results have been most gratifying. I know that a few hubski users have tested the waters already, but here's my formal invite to one and all of you to try it out. I hope it brings you each some unexpected delight. Enjoy!
Hey, I appreciate the shoutout! I really like e-Voxing. The voice certainly adds a more revealing picture of a person than handwriting alone. The comparison to voicemail is an easy one, but the thing with voicemail is that it's only left when one has been unavailable to speak to the caller and so for me, there's this dimension of having missed something, which is not the case for e-Vox. *note, your initial instinct in pronouncing my handle as hu-MAN-o-don (like iguanodon) was correct. I sometimes mumble when I don't have my public face on, as when I am e-Voxing. I guess I need to pay attention to my pronunciation!
So glad you are enjoying the format! It's about time I sent off an e-Vox in your direction, if you're willing to receive one. We have much to talk about, I'm sure, beginning with Robert Bly's rhotacism (still grateful for the discovery of that word), and continuing on through sundry other subjects. And yeah, the aspect of clear intention is what sets this most clearly apart from the voice mail. It really frees you up to luxuriate in the form. Or to share thoughts when they're most lucid in one's own mind, even though the recipient might be asleep/at work/in the middle of a spirit quest/what have you. "The voice certainly adds a more revealing picture of a person than handwriting alone." Well said! It does introduce an element of the personal that seems absent from all text based interaction. Thanks to for the clarification on handle phonetics, and even more for the totally awesome illustration of humanodons scale, relative to iguanodon. That is one debonaire humanodon. And there's nothing wrong with mumbling. I think it's just style. Vivre le mumble!
I'd absolutely welcome an e-Vox from you. From what thenewgreen has said, I'd guess that we do have similar interests. I'll pm my e-mail. I was actually quite surprised to find an image that suited my need so easily! In the artistic tradition, I simply stole it and repurposed it :)
What an interesting idea. I love it. A former girlfriend and I used to write long letters back and forth when we were living in separate cities for a time. In some ways letter writing is very challenging. Because we can say exactly what we mean, it's a challenge to craft the perfect words, but it also gives the opportunity for do-overs, which we don't get in real life. You never get the feeling when writing a letter of thinking of the perfect thing to say five minutes too late, which we often do in life, since you don't have to send it right away. I like this spin, because it injects more humanism into letter writing. Words can still be composed, but can be read or recited in a natural way, and there is no mistaking with what inflection a passage should be read. I'm sure we've all had the experience of sending a benign email or text, only to have the person who receives it completely misinterpret the meaning. Anyway, I'll look forward to recording my first e-Vox.
So true! Ambiguity is impossible to avoid in written language, try as we might. Emoticons, italics, caps and underscores have all arisen to address the problem, but ineffectively, and often at the expense of dignity, don't you agree? ;P I hadn't thought of that as a benefit of this format, but you're totally right. Interesting to remember that, despite the dominance of the written word, oral culture always comes first, and script arises merely as the notation of it. In grad school, when we presented our poems, others would read them aloud, and it always blew me away how impossible it was to convey emphasis and inflection of tone accurately. What you observe about the opportunity to deliberate, to collect meaning, to say exactly what you mean, how you feel, is probably my favorite thing about the e-Vox. That, and the irreplaceable joy that comes from hearing a well known, well loved voice clearly, speaking thoughts specifically to you. Thanks so much for your reflections on this thing! I look forward to hearing how you enjoy it.
No worries, Cortez! I think the most confusing thing about this project is conveying exactly what it isn't/is. It's not a product so much as a practice, at least for the time being, and I think our app-store molded expectations make this seem counterintuitive. Actually, I think the "thing" centered bias goes back quite a bit further than the App Store. But that's another sociological inquiry for another time. Anyway, I'm very glad to hear it may serve you well in making contact with distant friends. Would love to know how it goes, and will definitely keep you apprised of any thing-ward developments of the e-Vox!
I do love how much fidelity and texture, and all around being-there-ness it provides for a relative pittance in space/bandwidth. For this reason I see it as a part of the low-tech revolution. Pretty high-tech for luddites, but low tech by the standards of progress for progress sake. It's for people!
Huzzah indeed! Working on the collage has been really fun. It's like cracking the lid off of some impeccably preserved great times with some of my favorite people. It's really an ego boost too, in the most community sustained sort of way. It's like being at a party at which you are the only common guest of all the other attendees. Strange, the appearance of the hyphen, no? It was something of a last minute whimsy. who knows where the evolution will finally deliver it. e-Voxen is definitely in, as far as I'm concerned.
This is great cW! As you well know, I am a fan of e-voxing. In fact, I've e-voxed with mk, humanodon and lil of Hubski. I whole-heartedly endorse this mode of communication. It's like writing a long letter to someone but that someone also gets the background noise; the traffic, a dog barking a child laughing etc. These sounds help give context and paint a wonderful picture along with the message you are receiving. There are a number of obvious questions and critiques that arise about e-vox, but I've found that all of them are easily answered and aren't at all problems once you start using the process. I love it! Have a badge.
Thanks a ton! I feel so decorated. I'm also just really gratified by all the friends and correspondents willing to give something new a whirl. I've been calling it my quixotic project all the while, but I must say, it seems to have won some loyal supporters over the span, say nothing of good sports. Thanks for encouraging me to give this thing some wings!
What's the goal of this project? Is it to popularize e-Voxing over email, or will there be some sort of e-Vox UI to use in the future? Is it meant to end up as a sort of social network where you can view others' Voxes? Perhaps a connection to Hubski, so that you could view Voxes from the people you follow on Hubski? I think the concept is pretty unique even though some may feel like it's a rehashed voicemail.
Good questions, delta. My primary goal is to popularize e-Vox via email, but I'm intrigued by the possibility of an e-Vox UI as well. There are certain challenging problems to making it viable as a venture, but I'm interested in exploring the possibilities. In fact, I imagine that hubski might be the right place to talk about such viability, and if any coders/developers are intrigued by the project to the point where they'd like to be involved, I'd welcome contact. Any and all takers, feel free to pm me. I expect that many will dismiss the e-Vox as rehashed voicemail. Hopefully, some of them will recognize voicemail as a matter sorely in need of a good rehashing. The social network question is intriguing, and I must confess that I haven't really dreamed far in that direction as yet. In general, my motivation here is to help restore sustained, direct and personal contact to human relationship, which has become increasingly fractured and insubstantial, which in no small part is due to the structures of social media as it has developed. However, the prospect of enjoying the e-Voxen of the people you follow on a closely connected and engaged community such as hubski is most definitely intriguing. Thanks much for the direct and fruitful questions!
I just had a somewhat novel idea. What if we had a live collage showing the total archive of past e-Voxes along with a background image that would add input on the subject discussed in the e-Vox? It could still work over email if we had a script that read and interpreted the data sent in the email. Something like this would be the format to an email sent to input@eVox.org or a similar central hub email: -------------------- <from, to> <link to background image> <uploaded audio file> -------------------- <delta, cW> <i.imgur.com/rNdmUrL> <eVox12.wma> -------------------- The data would be interpreted by a script, uploaded to a VPS server, then grabbed and displayed on the website, displaying as: Please excuse the quick sketch.
This assumes you host the audio file on your own server. This is an example of a single tile in what would be an arrangement of tiles that you could browse. The gallery would be displayed on a page with the newest tiles at the top and the oldest at the bottom. When clicked, the tile would stream the e-Vox audio to the listener. A link to the audio would be sent to the recipient of the e-Vox via email.
This is a most intriguing prospect, delta. I'm definitely up for giving it a shot. You are envisioning the option to add a pictorial element, almost like achieving a vid podcast quality to the vox? I want to build avenues that encourage person to person conversations, but why not incorporate a collective, collaborative element as well? I'm wondering: won't lines of conversation quickly fork and exponentiate in a collective setting? Or have I missed a key detail? Forgive me, despite my recent tiny and faltering foray into learning Ruby, I'm still completely out of my element as far as building sites/platforms is concerned. I do have space/server via a web host, and can definitely allot pages/bandwidth to such expansions of the project. I have concerns that anything of scope will quickly outstrip my total bandwidth though. Maybe not though, if we were to use imgr/soundcloud. But free usage of these has severe data limitations. I have been wondering whether we could incorporate our google drives/dropboxes/etc. to solve the space problem. Does that sound helpful? What do you think? Also, b_b, wasoxygen, mk, humanodon, insomniasexx? I'm outta my league here ...
You could easily sort the conversations by the parties involved. This should solve any conversational confusion. As for programming knowledge, I would encourage JavaScript. It's what I'm currently learning and it would be very capable to execute a project such as this.
You are envisioning the option to add a pictorial element, almost like achieving a vid podcast quality to the vox?
Now that I think about it, this would complicate things. I think I would ultimately settle for plain color backgrounds for the tiles. The array of tiles (I'll throw together a sketch of what I'm envisioning soon) would simply allow for a colorful, more unique browsing experience compared to an ugly wall of text.
if we were to use imgr/soundcloud. But free usage of these has severe data limitations.
I could pay for a VPS server if needed. I would much rather control my own data than a third party controlling it.
Yeah, the simple tiling would definitely reduce data needed and make it seem less like it was trying to compete with face time or skype VM, or what have you. Preserving the beautiful simplicity is pretty important to me. I may have the server space necessary for this. Here's the crucial question: let's say I put this together and a million people start using it (good kinda problem). How would I make the project sustainable in terms of cost of data storage/transfer in a task/service which can and should be free? This is the conundrum I can't quite wrap my head around. Perhaps I should start building, and see if the kinks can be worked out as I go.
The way you could do this is putting non-intrusive ads on the site and/or setting up an account for donations. These are the two ways that would keep the simplicity and create revenue. Your web host may allow upgrading your plan by buying more disk space and/or bandwidth is needed. Who do you use?