NESpresso: Random Thoughts \ #001: Jelly Wide Web

I was reading The Jack Principals, an acrobat book that I picked up from Jellyvision a while ago, to see how You Don't Know Jack seems so natural as a gameshow & less of a computer game. The book practically describes how the Interactive Conversation Interface (aka ICI, pronoused "icky") works & how hard it is to actually pull it off.

Since Jellyvisions, the creators & practically the masters of ICI, have made the You Don't Know Jack series & various demos on how it can be used. This random though is what if Jellyvision teamed up with Microsoft, Netscape or AOL (actually, I see AOL doing this) & make a browser that talks back to you. MOVE OVER BONSI BUDDY! It's time for "JellyWeb"! It may see a little weird to have your browser talking to you, but it could make your online experience more enjoyable.

For the sake of all arguments, lets assume that AOL is implementing this. First, it would welcome & ask who is going online. Then ask for your password (if not saved already) & get you connected. Once you're online, it'll check your E-mail account(s) for new mail & then ask where you would like to go with a list of common activities you do online. It'll also notify you in real time whenever you have a new e-mail OR when you get an IM from a friend that you're not currently talking to. Second, JellyWeb would manage a list of bookmarks by frequency, so you're most frequently accessed sites would be higher up on the list than your seldom accessed sites. Any sites that you never visit wouldn't get bookmarked this way. Third, if something should go wrong (ie website not found, bad e-mail address, Online buddy dropped offline, get disconnected, ect.) while you're online, you'll have a friendly voice to notify you that something has happened.

One additional tool that could be used for navigation besides mouse & keyboard would be voice-recognition, where you can practically talk to your browser like you would talk to a friend at the same computer. Another tool could be enhanced would be the parental controls where the browser would tell you that you can't access that site & would suggest another site.

One downside to JellyWeb would be the initial "learning phase" where the software has no known preferences for you. You'd have to know how to configure certain web aspects (like e-mail & the mail servers) or the IM services that you normally use. One possible turn off would be the preset preferences done by the company that gives you the software to use, so AOL would be pushing their services on you that you don't really want. On the flipside, if you bought the software as a stand-alone browser, there would be no presets & you may not use the services that you want immediately. This would be something that market would have to work on.