There have been two themes in recent posts; sound (music) and how the concepts of money changes how people think about themselves and others. These two are also coming at me from readers with questions about music on the web and dealing with investors. I thought I'd take a few posts to share something that touches on both subjects, another excerpt from my next book, Reading Virtual Minds, this time from Chapter 4, "Anecdotes of Learning: The Investors Heard the Music":One of the early incarnations of the NextStage Evolution website modified itself in real time based on how individual visitors were interacting with it. Two people could be sitting in the same room but using different computers to browse the site and ET would deliver content customized to each visitor's unique cognitive, memorization, and comprehension styles.
This was demonstrated when two investors called up from their office in San Francisco. I was sitting in my office in Nashua, NH, and they had asked for a demonstration of ET.
"Have you been on our site?" I asked.
Yes, they had, of course. So?
"Are you near a computer hooked to the internet right now?"
Yes, they were. So?
"Log onto the site. Pick any page off the menu you'd like to visit and tell me which one it is, okay?"
Okay.
I navigated to the same page they were on. "I'm going to describe to you what I'm looking at. While I describe it to you pay close attention to what's actually on your screen. You'll notice some differences." I started reading some of the text.
Yes, the text on their browser was slightly different.
I started describing the size and placement of images, as well as image content.
Yes, in some cases they didn't even have an image I was describing, often they had one I didn't have, etc., etc.
Then, while I was talking to them, their browser started playing music.
(to be continued...)
(Information in this arc is from Chapter 4, "Anecdotes of Learning" of my next book, Reading Virtual Minds. Text and images copyright Joseph Carrabis and NextStage Evolution 2006-2007)
» What's the best use of sound files Online? from BizMediaScience
More on Behaviors and Engagement Mechanics, this time exploring the use of sound files on the web [Read More]
Tracked on: December 14, 2006 3:22 PM | Permalink to Trackback