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Re: Talker-ization of MOOs

>In any event, the first step in approaching this question probably
>shouldn't be talking to the people on this list; in should be talking
>to your users and finding out what they want/need that you might
>be able to provide.  The tools that are most likely to succeed are
>those that your users ask for.

What you've said is excellent, and I only object to what is said in the
above paragraph. When you are dealing with emerging technologies, the
important question is not so much what the users want, but what they want
that doesn't exist yet. How many people 10 years ago knew what they wanted
out of something called 'MOO' which didn't exist at the time?

This is the same logic which is leading the somewhat blind information
superhighway advocates to conlude that people want 500 channels of
television, rather than something yet to be invented that could be
revolutionary, exciting, and innovative.

If you polled the 9000+ people at LambdaMOO, the majority would probably
say they wanted an IRC-like contraption where they can meet anonymous sex
partners. Now, one could argue that that's what most people *really* want.
But maybe it's because they don't see the potential of MOO. We, the writers
to the list, create the potential, while our users, hopefully, exploit it
to its fullest.

Cheers,

cricket

+__________________________________________________________________________+
                   | The trees all waved their giant arms ...
|
|              And happiness bled from every street corner ...             |
|                              And biplanes bombed with fluffy pillows.    |
|                                      ____________________________________|
|      cricket@cybernetics.net           Meadow ---> meadow.iglou.com 7777 |
+__________________________________________________________________________+
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