Guy Kewney

Many online conversations start with an innocuous comment, producing this sort of response: "So, what you're really saying is..." And, of course, it rarely is what you're actually saying.

Interactive is a word with more meanings than it is safe to translate – and Adobe is stepping right into Babel Fish territory by putting web conferencing " for all" onto Acrobat, via Acrobat Connect. The Babel fish, a fictional translator in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, was blamed for causing more and bloodier wars because it removed barriers to communication.

The Adobe product is one of many trying to recreate the old chatroom mentality, which pioneer internet users will remember, going back to Prodigy and BIX and CIX – conferencing systems where everybody could have their say. But the trouble with online conferencing is that you can't see or hear the response to your comment for a day or more. They call these systems "interactive" but they aren't. You see a message, and you respond – in full – instantly – but you don't get a response until you have finished, posted, and your correspondent has replied.

Interactive conversation isn't like that. Watch two humans chatting, and you can see that when one person gets the wrong end of the stick, the other responds immediately. The response is either instant indignation, or instant qualification. "No, I wasn't getting at you! I was thinking of Betty and her poodle!" or "I wasn't even on the beach that week." Either way, the steam comes out of the conversation.

Online, as you respond to an initial, unintentional provocation, your subconscious is looking for signs of acknowledgement of your point; and of course, it doesn't get it. Your antagonist isn't reading it, because the system isn't interactive. So when, in their turn, they read your utterly outrageous attack on them, they become similarly outraged. What you need, of course, is an AI avatar which responds with a hurt, or apologetic, or amused face, based on the likely response of your correspondent. It's all very well putting your own "smiley" into online conversation; but what "interactive" means, is that the other person's smile is seen in response. Without that, you could start a fight.

It's all Adobe's fault. Why can't they understand a simple point like this? They must be really, really stupid...

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