You know a feature is hated when a feature of a premium subscription is preventing other people to use it with you.

(Yes, #Telegram Premium allows you to prevent others from sending you #VoiceMessages 😆)

I've just tried #VoiceMessages on #Discord, and I have to say they sound really well, I like them, of course Discord is maybe not perfect, but it's OK, I got used to it now. I hope recording of voice messages will appear in desktop version soon.

Dear #Mastodon users, I have a question, I've heard that it's possible to attach an audio file to each toot, I think it would be an interesting thing, so kind of a voice post, so I could talk by voice. However I'm not sure how it works. If I upload a recording can people download it or maybe not? And how to play the recording? I'm just curious about it, I love #Learning about new things. #VoiceMessages, #Learning, #Talking

@haikubot

Breaking this down as a comparison of fads or as something that is more or less trendy seems to me to miss key points.

Some situations, like making a purchase decision at a physical store, require in-the-moment communication. Comforting a friend who's having a hard time is better done by showing them they have your attention. Real-time discussion is often best there.

The article briefly touches on such scenarios but then snaps back to this as a trend matter, not a best tool for need matter. If you're sick with a cold you go to your regular doctor, but if you have a heart attack you go to a cardiologist. It would be ludicrous to have an article counting visits and concluding cardiologists are out of vogue or not popular. But this article reads that way to me.

Real-time discussion locks a person to a single activity. The need for that, for synchronous conversation, is less common so it's good there are ever more ways to do asynchronous communication, where the other party will read/hear eventually, and may subsequently respond eventually, but it seems to me outright wrong to describe real-time communication as out of vogue or not as popular.

Unnecessary intrusion was never popular. It's just that in the presence of bad tools it had to be tolerated more. But not all real-time conversation is intrusion. And not all audio or visual info has to be interactive/synchronous/real-time. Now we can factor things better.

Mechanisms like text or voice messaging or audio or video calls favor certain communicational needs at the expense of others. A compromise? Sort of. But it would be wrong to talk about oil paint vs watercolor or TV series vs song vs reading a book as always better or always worse. They're just different.

Instead of using the terminology of trend or popularity analysis, instead of counting Likes or watching stock value, it would be more helpful to identify a matrix or decision graph that associates situational needs with tech that will be respectful of participants needs for content privacy, for managing noise, to avoid being interrupted or to get timely info, to hide or convey emotions like fear or anger or doubt, to avoid detailing unnecessary information, to promote active and timely compromise, to manage many participants, to make it easy to refer back later or easy to have an ephemeral non-binding interaction, to deal with text or audio or video or mixed data...

Instead of having a preferred one-size-fits-all modality, understanding that each mode has characteristics that work for some needs and not others is good. Learning to ask, "for this need, which should I/we use?" would, in my view, be a better way to embrace new tech. These technologies need to collaborate, not compete.

#text #'voice #VoiceMessages #phone #phones #sms #social #SocialMedia #communication #tech #technology #WhatsApp #Messenger #Slack #UX #UI

@rooster using #iMessage or any #SingleVendor / #SingleProvider system - espechally #VoiceMessages within these - is something only #TechIlliterates and #Snitches do.

So don't trust anyone using these at all!

Sorry, ich mag die Dinger. 🤷🏾‍♂️ #Sprachnachrichten #Voicemessages