Of User Interfaces and Media Sharing

In 1891 A. B. Strowger changed the history of the telephone system by inventing the Strowger Automatic Exchange, a switch that allowed callers to dial the number of the called party instead of asking an operator to connect the call. In my opinion nothing as revolutionary has been done to the simple old telephone call; supplementary features such as call waiting, call forwarding and voice mail, to Webb's patent on toll-free calls, nothing comes close. One reason for my view is that it introduced the world to a most powerful, easy and intuitive user interface. It is said that a large part of Google's success in the search engine business is due to its extremely sparse and simple search engine user interface. Obviously, a lot of technology goes into the search engine hidden behind all the simoplicity of the user interface. The telephone pad of the phone is the classical example of a simple user interface. Nobody on this planet needs to be taught how to use a telephone to make a voice call.

I like inventions that do not disturb the user interface of a voice call. I was part of a team that invented Voice over IP (VoIP) backhaul technology (Class 4 switching) at Bell Labs in the 1990s. That invention did not disturb the dialpad user interface. In Video Sharing, we have another invention that also does not disturb this user iterface. It allows a caller to initiate a voice call to a called party and, during the call, have the option to add multimedia objects (live video, images, photographs, music, stored video, etc) to the ongoing voice call. It allows an enrichment of the voice call. The underlying nature of this new service is fundamentally different from video telephony, in which the aim is for the caller and called party to see each other. In the new service the goal is for the caller and the called party to share the same object, to share an experience that enhances the information content of the voice call. The shared experience may involve an event taking place external but concurrently to the ongoing voice call (e.g., a child's first tentative walk), it could be an image captured moments ago and being shown to a friend and discussed, or an object that was downloaded earlier but has cropped up in the conversation, or an object that was viewed earlier that can be accessed online and shared while on the call.

Many people when they first hear of this invention classify it as User Generated Content. However it really is not about content as much as it is about enhancing a phone call, making it richer. It is much more an enrichment of the voice and an increase in the information content of the transaction that is the main goal of the voice call. In an ever-changing and rapidly dynamic world, a world in which we live now, sometimes a voice call just does not have the information carrying capacity we need to convey the message. And converting a voice call to a broadcast to one's social network could be priceless. This is the raison d'etre of mobile telephony based share services.