are you ready for audio spam?

#84
You call this exciting?

This is oh so exciting... all the news these days. Now we'll be entertained and entertained every way we turn. Now, we can have cable TV on our computers... just like cable TV. The media is excited about AOL Studio's new entertainment channel from Entertainment Asylum. So, shouldn’t we? Wasn’t it fun attaching a picture of ourselves to our email and instant messages? Now we can add voice clips. And, we're told that soon we'll have audio playing in the background. Hey... just like the elevator music we hear on Adobe's help line. This is really exciting stuff. Right? Wonder who will choose the music... will it be like MTV?
__ It's all coming back. I remember a hot afternoon in June of '95 -- having lunch around a conference table in America Online’s Vienna Virginia headquarters. I had been invited to chat with AOL about the new online horizon. With much revelry a young man was introduced to the group (I don't recall the name) having been brought in to develop channels. Fresh from the broadcast industry he declared "I don't know much about the online thing, but in a year AOL will look and feel like cable TV."
__ Imagine that, I thought to myself as I whisked out the Dulles access road -- announcers, commercials, ID signs, the works -- all while I’m working. Hello? Anybody home? Does it sound like fun... or more like another way to grow advertising revenue and sell franchising?
__ We see Compuserve dishing up a new Web-based service which includes plans for a "pay-per-view" channel. MSN showing peeks of a new upgrade coming soon, promises full-time on-going entertainment. And they're all going for the entertainment-mixed with content angle. But if we wanted to watch TV, wouldn't we just sit down and watch TV?
__ I had a webmaster recently brag to me that her website now features a different music selection on each page. If I wanted to listen to music, I’d just pop in a CD, or flip on the radio? Right? Did you ask for that music? Could commercials be far behind?
__ In a main-stream website just this morning I was greeted with an error message that said I had connected to a page configured for HD audio, then given the option to "...Install the correct software? ... or Cancel." When I clicked CANCEL, the machine froze, with a quivering "Unimplemented Trap Error 17." So there. End of this morning's surf. If I wanted to listen to HD audio, wouldn't I already have it installed? Hello? Are we ready for audio spam?
__ Is there something wrong with this picture? Somebody help me out here... I seem to be having a problem getting it through my thick skull that the web should be like MTV.

Best regards,
Fred Showker

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Fred Showker, nationally recognized designer author and speaker, is a 25-year veteran of the graphics industry, with his own firm Showker Graphic Arts & Design. Heís an associate editor for the Mug News Service (MNS) as well as Home & School Mac. You can see Fred in action at any of his Design & Graphics workshops around the country sponsored by Dynamic Graphics Educational Foundation, InHouse Graphics, PrintFest and others. You can chat with him directly on America OnLine, where he is ìAFA Shwkrî, a forum assistant in the User Group Forum (UGF), or in eWorld as co-host of the WORKING SOLO forum.
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