Virtual Reality and Conversational Interfaces

The future of human computer interaction. Or, in other words, would you rather sit on your sofa or go out and do things.

2016 is the year where two opposite forms of human computer interaction are poised to capture our imagination or at least consume a lot of digital ink within the technorati (i.e. on Medium and Twitter). These emerging technologies demand that we ask ourselves what type of future do we want, simulated experiences or more meaningful experiences.

The VR wave that consumed CES promises immersion, presence, the dream of climbing everest and base jumping without actually putting in the effort to do it; wholly new forms of storytelling all from the comfort of your sofa.

VR is a world where the ‘computer’ consumes us into its digital world. It’s a big giant headset and immersive sound; it’s the reality of The Matrix and Neuromancer.

VR is a world where the ‘computer’ consumes us into its digital world. It’s a big giant headset and immersive sound; it’s the reality of The Matrix andNeuromancer.

The Conversational Interface (CI) that is sneaking up on us (thank you Chris Messina for such a great piece) promises the ability to chat with apps the same way we chat with our friends.

Open up iMessage or Whatsapp and just type, “Hey Uber, pick me up in 10 minutes” and boom your car arrives. “Hey Amazon Instant, you got any fresh parmesan? I need some for the risotto I’m making tonight” and boom your fresh parmesan arrives in an hour. Even payment disappears into the algorithmic background.

CI is a reality where the computer is invisible and is consumed by our physical reality. It’s a chatbot that acts like your friend; it’s the world of Her.

CI is a reality where the computer is invisible and is consumed by our physical reality. It’s a chatbot that acts like your friend; it’s the world of Her.

Strangely, the reality of the conversational interface is almost harder to imagine. Or at least, it’s harder to depict because life looks and feels the same and technology is just this enabler of the things we already do. There’s no science fiction to it.

Do we want technology to enable a more fluid, efficient life that allows to connect with others in more meaningful ways and spend less time on the admin side of life? Or do we want technology to simulate experiences that trick our minds into having a good time.

These two forms of interaction fundamentally require us to answer what do we want from technology. Do we want technology to enable a more fluid, efficient life that allows us to connect with others in more meaningful ways and spend less time on the admin side of life? Or do we want technology to simulate experiences that trick our minds into having a good time.

Of course, VR and CI are not mutually exclusive nor do they serve the same purpose. VR is about entertainment and exploration first, new forms of interaction, and complex long distance activities like medical exams; both will find their market.

Both technologies have a ways to go before they achieve their promise. VR is held back by the computing horsepower required to render realistic 360 environments and CI is held back by the limitations of natural language processing. Both technological hurdles will be overcome very soon resulting in VR experiences that are truly immersive and totally natural CI’s.

However, the question that we need to honestly ask ourselves is what role do we want technology to play in our lives. Personally, the more invisible the computer the better because it lets me be more connected to the real world.

However, the question that we need to honestly ask ourselves is what role do we want technology to play in our lives. Personally, the more invisible the computer the better because it lets me be more connected to the real world and therefore, more meaningful. No matter how perfect a simulation…it’s still not real.

Call me old school, but in my future I’d way rather ask my bot “Hey, where should we go snowshoeing this weekend?” than strap on a headset and sit on my sofa for a simulated snowshoe through the forest no matter how real it feels. That is, unless, they develop VR for my dog too so he can come along.

Fixing Twitter

The sky is supposedly falling at Twitter. The stock is down. Top execs are leaving. A superficial deconstruction from The New Yorker laments its demise.

Don’t worry though, Twitter will continue to thrive and, I believe, become even more valuable. Why? Because when Twitter works well, people love it.

The more time I spend on twitter the more I like it. The more time I spend on Facebook the more I dislike it. I think this is a pretty common sentiment. I’m not particularly ‘good’ at Twitter but that’s what makes it even more interesting. There’s nothing interesting about Facebook anymore.

The more time I spend on twitter the more I like it. The more time I spend on Facebook the more I dislike it. I’m not particularly ‘good’ at Twitter but that’s what makes it even more interesting. There’s nothing interesting about Facebook anymore.

When Twitter aligns with its “job to be done” for its users theres’s a powerful and valuable fit (cc @claychristensen ). The problem is when Twitter tries to be something that it’s not.

Just because Twitter is confusing does not mean it’s broken. The problem with Twitter is usually framed as a noise problem. It’s too noisy for it to be useful. But this is wrong.

The problem with Twitter isn’t the noise; it’s the fact that the layers of content are too intermingled. Twitter right now is a fruit salad. It’s a mishmash of flavors; it needs to be a layer cake, where each layer adds to the other but still stand alone clearly.

Twitter right now is a fruit salad. Twitter right now is a fruit salad. It’s a mishmash of flavors; it needs to be a layer cake, where each layer adds to the other but still stand alone clearly.

Twitter is a platform of ideals and goals. Facebook is a platform of everyday life. On Twitter I’m aspirational; I follow role models, interesting public characters, important organizations, and obscure interest groups. On Facebook I follow friends from high school and some magazines. Facebook is a utility now. Hugely profitable but boring.

Twitter needs to distance itself from the idea of being a social network and become a conversation network. Might not sound as sexy but it’s definitely more interesting. This is its job to be done.

Here are some ideas for how to fix Twitter (cc Jack Dorsey):

• Turn the fruit salad into a layer cake. Provide different interfaces for information based browsing and engaging in open conversation. Make conversations easier to follow and contribute to.
• Make news feeds cleaner by removing the @replies by default. Provide a view into my newsfeed with filters so it’s the best most relevant content. A trending sidebar doesn’t cut it. Moments is a decent start but it kind of defeats the purpose of following people if you guys curate it.
• Allow for sub feeds where I can follow specific people and just engage with them. Creating little mini groups of followers and conversations.
• Allow me to view my feed by subjects e.g. news, sports, tech etc. Think like a newspaper in that way. Help me categorize feeds.
• Make the ‘heart’ feature functional. Provide me updates about that Tweet, use it to surface that to my followers. Add degrees of virality. The retweet is the strongest but there’s way more under the surface.
• Long form content. This is inevtiable for a lot of reasons bu still require users to post a 140 character ‘subject line’. Treat longer content as an ‘attachment’ to a Tweet. Don’t forget that the medium is the message and limitations do wonders for ingenuity and style of conversation. Further deepen the integration between Medium to achieve this.
• Make it easier for the passive consumers of content to have a good time on Twitter. Design for the lurkers. Foster the power of the ‘like’ over the retweet to achieve this (cc Fred Wilson).
• Don’t let the very loud power users completely influence your design decisions.

How should Twitter make money? Display advertising is fine. But it feels like that’s only the surface.

Here are a few ideas:

• Embrace conversational interfaces and enable developers to build bots and applications that capitalize on the short form, conversational interactions within Twitter. Conversational commerce is the next step. Imagine this: someone likes a tweet about a book/movie/restaurant and a bot engages them in the following: I saw you liked that book, looks like you already read it but are you interested in something similar? Want me to order it for you? The interaction model needs a lot of refinement but the potential to blend open interactions with a functional utility is a natural evolution of this conversational medium and build a transactional model around it (cc @chris Messina). Build APIs for developers to integrate natural language processing apps with tweets. I’m not talking about command line crap.
  • Harness all the brain power and data at your disposal to provide a true market research platform that goes way beyond surveys. This is a potentially big business.
  • Capitalize on the fact that people follow their interest groups and are looking to engage with them. Twitter should be the most direct form of conversational marketing. Right now the advertising tools stink. They are very expensive and do not provide the right guidance to make content conversational.
  • Provide better integration with services that content is connected with. Help advertisers close the loop between content and transactions.

Even though there’s a lot to do, Twitter’s current challenges are a direct result of its success. It succeeded because it unlocked the potential of the realtime, open, organic web. This is an important and essential mission.

Now Twitter must figure out how to balance the values of openness, conversation, and realtime sharing with a growth strategy and big time business model.

It starts though by changing the perception of Twitter; it is not a Facebook competitor. Twitter isn’t a social network. It’s a conversation network.

Learning to balance the demands of an open conversational space with the needs of an information platform are Twitter’s inherit strength and greatest challenge.