Voice in Second Life

As a product developer I am always interested in the course of a product, especially when it involves Virtual Reality. Linden Labs makes a particularly interesting subject because they seem to have a theory on their own about things, going in against your community for example. Their latest pet project, Voice in Second Life seems to prove this once more...

The reason many people treasure Second life is, because it is a SECOND Life, different from their every day life, different from what they are used to doing, a welcome change where your imagination can run wild. For someone to use voice, this is a huge sacrifice to make, and what are the benefits of using voice over text...

For those that choose sounds over text there was already an alternative, a more private, more intimate option then the Voice application SL plans to introduce, namely the widely used Skype application. However, i think the large majority will choose to abandon the idea of using Voice all together for different reasons:

1. Breach of privacy - When you think about, your voice tells a lot of who you are, where you are from, and a lot of other data you wouldn't send out in public without some consideration. Age, gender, geological location, accents, even psychological aspects are all discernible from someone voice (Confidence and authority for example).
2. Language Barrier - Second Life is an international product, and though it might look like many speak English trough text, there is a huge difference between speaking or typing it. Tools such as babbler or translators don't work on voice yet, and even when you do speak English, your pronunciation or accent can make you feel less secure, hesitant while speaking.
3. Mixed signals and discussions - While typing, responses are neatly sorted chronologically, even with 6 or 7 people talking together discussions are followed easily as you can read the lines one at a time. With voice, 3 or 4 people talking passionately about the same subject gets difficult. There are no physical signs or signals like we have in real life for people wanting to say something. In this regard, voice doesn't add anything.
4. Multiple Conversations - the reason why voice will never replace text must be because your voice will only go one direction at a time. Having more then 1 IM going at the same time is just no option with Voice, while typing easily handles multiple conversations as there is a natural delay people are used to when chatting over text.
   
5. Sound Settings - I usually play my own music or enjoy listening to the area's music while I am in SL. Text doesn't interfere with this while voice does. Having to turn down the volume for conversations again, is not a plus for using voice.
6. Privacy - Not everyone is isolated behind their computer 'island' when they are logged on, sometimes voice is just impossible unless you want to cause annoyances to those around you. Phone calls are different as they usually don't last over 5 minutes or can be easily transferred to a more private room.
7. Hardware - Not everyone will have a headset, or with one of the 6 previous reasons in mind plan on buying one. This already excludes a major part of SL from participating in the first place.

Of course I realise you don't have to take ALL conversations in voice, but a mixed 'Voice VS Text' conversation can be tiring. The person voicing still has to wait for the text to be typed, a slowdown that feels natural for text to text, but unnatural for voice. (Imagine speaking a line ever 2 minutes as a stop-and-go conversation, this is just not a natural way of talking to each other).

All in all Voice will fill a small gap for the 'Desired focus group' of SL - the business men and people looking for a strong, personal social network, both of which are just an utopia in the current state of Second Life.