Download on demand - the better way to go or what we have become accustomed to? I have introduced Groove Workspace to a number of family members, including my brother, to share pictures and documents. Two of the primary tools we use are the Files tool and the Pictures tool, used to share & distribute photographs and video clips. The way these tools work, by default, is that when a member of a space adds content, the content is immediately pushed to other members of the space.
On multiple occassions my brother, who works in the IS/IT industry, has asked why files can't be downloaded on demand - much like a web site. Well, the Files tool does support this model via option settings on folders in the tool, but I have never enabled it. I thought about enabling it, but had trouble justifying that this is the experience he wanted - after all, I know what my brother wants better than he does. My thinking is that when people want to look at content, they typically want immediate gratification - they don't like waiting for it. But have they accepted that there will be delays because of technological implementations/limitations? In other words, when people go to a web site and click on a link to an image or video clip, do they simply view the time it takes to download the content as a part of the experience?
Think about pulse/rotary phones when the first came out - depending upon the digits in the phone number, there would be inherent delays for each digit to be dialed before the outbound connection could even be establish. But there was nothing else offered at the time, so you had to live with it and quickly got accustomed to the delays. Now think about the touchtone phones of today which are in widespread use, more so than pulse/rotary, and how quickly the outbound connections are established. If you made people go back to using pulse/rotary phones and wait longer to make calls, I'd bet that you'd have a lot of unhappy folks because they know there are faster ways to make the same calls. Another way to state this is that they could get more immediate gratification by using a better implementation of technology.
Another analogy that comes to mind is recording television programs using VCRs. After programming what shows you wished to record, at some later point and time you could come back and watch the shows, right? Well there is the small matter of rewinding the tape which could take anywhere from seconds to minutes depending upon the VCR, the length of the program recorded, where on the tape the recording started, etc... Today we have DVRs like TiVo and ReplayTV replacing VCRs, where recordings occur on a harddrive instead of tape. This better implementation of technology allows you to watch shows without any significant delays. As an owner of a DVR and VCR, I truly appreciate having more immediate gratification by using the DVR.
So switch mindsets back to me and my brother. My goal is to share pictures and video clips of my daughter with him, as well as other members of my family. Knowing that they are going to want to see all content I share, I argue that it's a better experience to have Groove push the content to them than to have files downloaded on demand. I say this because:
- All of my family has broadband internet connections. They are paying for it at a flat rate, so costs for sending/receiving date is irrelevant - might as well use as much as possible to get your money's worth.
- Waiting for 1-3 Meg images and 2-11 Meg video clips to download, when you are ready to look at them, goes against the "immediate gratification" experience. When they double-click on a file, they typically want to look at something then and there.
- Part of my family has laptops, including myself, so connectivity can go up and down. This is important because if I wish to share content, but my laptop is not available to satisfy user initiated requests for downloading the content, then the user waits until I have connectivity. Again, this goes against the "immediate gratification" experience.
- If the typical action of my family would be to request to download all content that I wish to share, then why not get it all in the first place?
Don't get me wrong, there are times to use download on demand, especially when content will be selectively viewed/requested - I just haven't found it to be the experience I want when sharing pictures and video clips.
11:01:04 AM 
|
|
