As an old believer in the value and intimacy of interpersonal voice conversations, I'm starting to feel a little superfluous. ( I'm not really worried - I expect that wireless minutes more than make up for loss of land-line minutes)
But this begs a question - how do the real-time interpersonal and the broadcast transactional mix ? Both have communities. Both communicate intimate thoughts and feelings, and in both cases occasionally create speakers remorse. Are they two sides of the same coin, or different currencies ?
If forced to take a side in ignorance I would have chosen that they would mix well. I might (gasp) be wrong. Perhaps mixed modalities don't always mix.
I went looking apps on Facebook (more than 50,000 apps) that would enhance my communications capabilities with other facebook users, and with other humans. If there were lots of apps, or some really well used ones, that facilitated real-time interpersonal voice communication, that would indicate that the modalities mix. What did I find you ask? My search was not comprehensive, but after trying long enough to get discouraged I had only discovered 20 apps, where the most popular was charting less than 1500 usages a month. Pretty anemic for a community of 400M users.
ok - keep lookin'.
I found a voice app for gamers toggles in at over 4000 usages a month. Still not great, but at least a blip. Note, however, that this is voice as a part of another app. This isn't voice. This is just a sideline. The core business of gamer voice supported by this application's creator is more than 2B minutes a month. The Facebook app is a drop in the bucket.
So what? The facts are the facts. Land-line voice is on its last legs. Social Networking tools will not replace the real-time interpersonal voice experience: the modalities don't mix. All other conclusions are left as an exercise to the communicator.
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