WEB SERVICE
This has just gotta be illegal, I think, typing away with a grin. Surely I'm not allowed to be doing this. But here I am, on a certain cable TV company's Web site - the opening page, mind you - complaining about its relentlessly awful customer service. And there it is, my demented ranting, for everyone to see. Everyone, that is, except people without Third Voice.
Third Voice is a free browser add-on that lets you post notes to Web sites - notes that anyone else with Third Voice can read and respond to. People without the software can't see what's going on. Think of it as a pair of very cool shades. Put them on and you see a groovy parallel universe in which everyday Web sites are plastered with all sorts of visitor feedback. Take them off and you're back on the normal Web.
In its minimized form, Third Voice is a small button sitting in a corner of your browser. When a page that has notes is opened, the button flashes. Click on it and you get a left-hand windowpane that lets you easily sort through all the notes on the page. There are several flavors of notes: Public notes can be seen by anyone using Third Voice, group notes are visible to a restricted set of users (coworkers, classmates), and private notes are for your eyes only. Each note is attached to a specific block of text; if content changes, it's saved as an unattached note.
To get an idea of who's using Third Voice, go to the product's portal site at www.thirdvoice.com. As of this writing, users were heatedly sounding off on everything from the moral justification of NATO's involvement in Kosovo to how best to eliminate Jar Jar Binks in the next Star Wars episode. These discussions are scattered throughout the Web - AltaVista's front page (www.altavista.com), for example, unwittingly serves as a forum for debate over which search engine is best.
But mixed in with decent discussion is an annoying volume of spam and ad hominem drivel. To help manage the signal-to-noise ratio, Third Voice has designated experts to post on various topics and is also exploring the use of peer ratings (which would allow users to filter notes based on the author's reputation) for future versions.
And then there's debate about the product itself. A "Say No to Third Voice" Web site (www.wildpoetryforum.com/nttv) serves as a forum for the seriously pissed off. The site preaches against the evils of Third Voice ("The use of this software constitutes an invasion of privacy and copyright infringement!") and has created its own JavaScripts to prevent using Third Voice for posting notes on the site.
Software this revolutionary is bound to have its opponents. Then again, if the dogs are barking at your heels, you know you're leading the pack.
Third Voice (at press time only for Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 on the PC): free. Third Voice: +1 (650) 591 1200, www.thirdvoice.com.
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