Ugh!!!! This guy is so full of stupid it hurts. Ok, let me not fall into rant mode and just be nice and logical.
The fallacy some people fall into when presented with a new product or service is to make an assumption that this new product or service is meant to replace current methods......entirely. It's a black or white world to these people. What you should be thinking instead is how this service could e utilized in a more useful way than SOME current methods of doing things. This is the same crap I read when augmented reality was coming about. Stop thinking A versus B and start thinking A + B!
Regarding the authors rant, of course a wikipedia type page of text has huge advantages when wanting to learn about a subject. But there can be times when Qwiki's method will be advantageous too! For example, what if Qwiki became embedded into interactive TV products. I'm sitting on the couch, watching Mythbusters, nowhere near my computer, and a term is brought up that I'm unfamiliar with. I could pause the tv and initiate Qwiki through a voice command and, still in my sunken-into-couch-ain't-willing-to-move-an-inch position, I can sit through a quick brief on said term before continuing with the show. That's just one example and there will be many more.
So again, stop it with the this versus that thinking!!!!! It's so simple- and single-minded! See the pluses and minuses with every solution and consider how each can serve in different scenarios!
I based my critique on what Doug Imbruce and Louis Monier actually said and showed in their brief demo.
You should re-read my piece. The whole thing. It's actually full of the appreciation for nuance and shades of gray. My worry is that Qwiki will not be.
By the way, your couch potato scenario makes me wonder if you have seen "Wall-E" and "Idiocracy". While you're in your couch there, check 'em out.
Sorry, I don't care about all the downvotes. I did in fact read your entire article. Your quote:
"It needs to fail. This is not the right way for us to go forward."
You're basically hoping completely that this will in fact fail entirely, without understanding how it could be useful for some people in some scenarios.
Attacking me on a personal level in your comment is also very simple-minded. You have no clue about the kind of person I am, what kind of activities I'm involved in, yet you've already made the assumption that I'm a lazy-ass fat person as portrayed in Wall-E. I'm the exact opposite. I run. I bike. I go to the gym very often. But there are indeed times in some days where I'm tired and want to veg-out, and in those times, I will want to plop on a couch and just watch some television.
Go ahead and downvote me all you want. For your sake, you should at least allow the possibility that you're thinking is wrong. By stating "it needs to fail", you basically hope no one will ever find their product useful, without seeing how people in the real world will react to it in the first place.
If you can, please give me some feedback on the A versus B / A+B thinking that I hope people practice, rather than trying to compare one thing versus another, choose the one that is mostly better, and hope the other goes away. The world is full enough for people to make use of a multitude of products and services to fulfill their needs and desires, and the way you choose to do so isn't the holy grail of how to live one's life.
You're probably right. In the second presentation[1], Mayer (Google's VP of Search prod. and UX) pointed out some problems users who search might experience: 1 of them being the serial presentation of information, and not a full set of information at once (eg. Google presenting you only 1 result at a time, or Wikipedia 1 fact at a time).
The fallacy some people fall into when presented with a new product or service is to make an assumption that this new product or service is meant to replace current methods......entirely. It's a black or white world to these people. What you should be thinking instead is how this service could e utilized in a more useful way than SOME current methods of doing things. This is the same crap I read when augmented reality was coming about. Stop thinking A versus B and start thinking A + B!
Regarding the authors rant, of course a wikipedia type page of text has huge advantages when wanting to learn about a subject. But there can be times when Qwiki's method will be advantageous too! For example, what if Qwiki became embedded into interactive TV products. I'm sitting on the couch, watching Mythbusters, nowhere near my computer, and a term is brought up that I'm unfamiliar with. I could pause the tv and initiate Qwiki through a voice command and, still in my sunken-into-couch-ain't-willing-to-move-an-inch position, I can sit through a quick brief on said term before continuing with the show. That's just one example and there will be many more.
So again, stop it with the this versus that thinking!!!!! It's so simple- and single-minded! See the pluses and minuses with every solution and consider how each can serve in different scenarios!