Third Voice: Boon or Bane?
The iMac NewsPage
Jun 14, 1999
It used to be that some webmasters would overzealously add all sorts of bells and whistles into their websites: fancy Java applets, Javascript rollover effects, blinking text (yikes!), animated graphics, garish color combinations – you name it, they dish it out. And visitors would either marvel at these effects, tolerate them, or turn them off altogether. But now, the shoe's in the other foot. And webmasters can't stop Third Voice (ab)users from mucking up their websites.
 hen I first read about Third
Voice the other day, the immediate thought that crossed my mind was,
"What in the world was Third Voice,
Inc. thinking when it decided to release this product to the Internet
public?" And as I began picking up more information from the several (generally
negative) articles written about it, I grew more wary of the service and
how it would affect websites like mine. So I did the next logical thing –
I paid the website a visit to find out what all the fuss was. And now I'm
here playing the devil's advocate – I think.
You Want Feedback? You Got It.
As explained on its website, Third Voice is a unique, free browser companion
service that lets you post your thoughts and opinions via inline notes
on any web page, just by turning on Third Voice and logging in.
How It Works
Once the Third Voice client is activated, you can begin to read inline
notes immediately simply by looking for markers within websites left by
other Third Voice visitors. Click on any marker and a note pops up. Posting
notes on web pages is a similarly effortless affair. The only thing is
you have to login to Third Voice with your username and password, and in
order to do that, you first need to register with the service.
And Why Webmasters Hate It
Still, it is with little surprise that like a knee-jerk response,
webmasters have already begun to point out the kind of harm that Third
Voice will do to websites, what with visitors being able to conveniently
– and indiscriminately, perhaps – stick all kinds of electronic post-it
notes on web pages. Already, the people behind the Say
No To Third Voice campaign have compiled a list of prominent "victims"
of Third Voice, including the websites of Apple, Disney, Microsoft, and
even the White House. I too share their concerns; earlier today, I updated
several pages of this website (including this one) with a short Javascript routine to safeguard my site
against possible Third Voice intrusion. (Many thanks to the efforts of
Jeremy Bowers who authored the Javascript.) So even as I attempt to keep a balanced view of this controversial
service, I'm betrayed by my own worries that my website could be turned
into an unintended bulletin board for all and sundry.
However, if one puts aside for a moment the instances of abuse (where
the contents of notes are clearly unsavory or obscene), Third Voice is
an incredibly innovative new product that, when used under the right conditions,
holds great promise. (This is probably the one time when one should shoot
the messenger.:-) Still, I hope that Third Voice would spare a moment to
think about the ramifications of the misuse or abuse of their service on
all the websites out there which may want no part of it until its negative
potential can been safely ruled out. At least, they should heed the call
for the service to be usable only on an opt-in basis, that is, Third Voice
has to first verify that websites welcome these online stickies before
the service can be extended to those websites. (Isn't it only logical that
the onus should be on Third Voice since they began the whole thing?)
This episode reminds us of a previously-released software (although
I forget the name) which was designed to stop banner ads from loading on
browsers. To their credit, however, the producers of that particular software
promptly realised the long-term detrimental effect it would have on affected
websites, and voluntarily withdrew the product from the market. Currently,
iCab does the same thing too, but its
makers present the argument that advertisers would have to think of better
ways of promoting their products on the Web than with slow-loading banners.
But even the effects of these products on websites pale in comparison to
the far-reaching consequences which Third Voice would possibly have.
I think that even if webmasters want improved feedback and interactivity
with their readers, it's best left to them to decide how to achieve this,
and many options are already open to them, all of which are within their
control. Few webmasters, I think, would want to relinquish this control
to just about any keyboard-happy surfer who happens to visit the site armed
with Third Voice. And why not? Webmasters are ultimately responsible to
their readers for the quality of content on their websites, and can ill
afford to have them turned into some online public toilet wall, if not
worse. But does the use of Third Voice really deface websites to the
extent that the case has been made out to be?
Does Third Voice Really Screw Up Websites?
The way that Third Voice actually works is still a bit of a mystery,
at least to Mac users who have yet had a chance to try it out. Some articles
have suggested that it introduces a "layer" over a targeted web page, as
if the servers at Third Voice, Inc. are able to project a layer (on which
users' notes are posted) which is mapped over the targeted web page,
which itself is essentially untouched. So, just like how cascading style
sheets work, I suspect it doesn't change the inherent content or code of a web page,
at least not that visitors are aware of who are not registered users
of this service. Even if a registered user of Third Voice posts a "public
note" on a website (the two other options being personal and group notes),
it is visible only to those within the Third Voice community, so to speak,
and not beyond. So in that sense, Third Voice may in reality be more innocuous
than say, that voracious email-transmitted worm that gobbled up all those
Microsoft files in PCs the other week. And can somebody please explain
to me just why PCs always get to have all the attention?:-)
Here's another thought: Even if Third Voice messes up a website as badly as some have claimed, the detriment is evident only to those to use the service. And if they become so disillusioned and disenchanted with the software having experienced first-hand how its indiscriminate use can degrade the quality of any particular website, don't you think they'd be the first to find Third Voice a turn-off? So in reality, the threat if any comes from a possibly much smaller group of clearly malicious abusers whose sole intent would be just that: to go out on the Web and find a hydrant to piss on. Ultimately, for all the good intentions that may be behind the creation of Third Voice, some form of control is still necessary to prevent its abuse.
Whether celebrated or denounced, there is no denying that Third Voice
has taken interactivity on the Web to a new level and has quickly caught
the attention of the vast Internet community. The reasons cited by Third
Voice as to why you should
use Third Voice are frankly plausible, and if you're curious about
how it works, it's described
in detail here. Third Voice has allowed users now to personalize and
interact with websites and among themselves in a much more immediate fashion
than before. Under the right conditions, a Third Voice-accessible website
could develop a greater sense of place and community where visitors could
converge upon and feel free to interact within, to venture beyond the paradoxical
state of connected isolation that Net denizens still find themselves in. If webmasters
should choose eventually to entertain Third Voice visitors in their websites,
then that could well be a start to more spontaneous dialogue between the
two. And that could be a good thing in the long run.
Last Words
Perhaps Third Voice isn't plainly the dangerous toy we think it is
that could go out of control in the wrong hands. Perhaps we should all
give it a chance to prove itself before nipping it in the bud. In that
regard, if Third Voice, Inc. is prepared to respect the right of control
webmasters have over their websites and to seek their approval for access
privileges to specifically designated pages, then I for one might be willing
to meet them halfway and see where things lead to. But there can be no
laissez faire.
What do you think? (Uhmm...
just email would be fine, thanks.)
* * *
Your Comments
I received several letters from readers in response to the above article (thank you all). Two in particular made some interesting points which I thought I'd share with the rest of you.
The first is from Mark Carmichael who copied me a letter he wrote to the people behind the Say No To Third Voice campaign:
I discovered your site (www.nototv.hypermart.net) today through a link on the Mac OS Rumors site.
This was the first I had heard of Third Voice, an irony you may want
to consider carefully in your campaign.
I am appalled at the arguments you present on your site, and your current
methodology for addressing the problem you perceive. Therefore, I'm writing
to suggest better ways to discourage use of the Third Voice service in
particular, even though I am unsympathetic to your current appeals on the
subjects of "URL ownership", "derivative works", and web site inviolability.
I haven't attempted to use the Third Voice service myself, because some of
the Terms of Service conditions:
"User grants Third Voice the right to disclose to third parties
certain User Information or any other information about User's use
of the Service in the aggregate. Such disclosures will exclude
User's name, mailing address, email address, and account, unless User
expressly directs Third Voice, or any other person User may specifically
designate, to disclose such information or unless Third Voice is required
to disclose such information by any applicable law or legal process
served on Third Voice."
When these and other terms of the agreement are considered along with the
basic operation of the Third Voice plugin, it seems clear that Third Voice
plans to support itself through the sale of marketing information to web
site developers and web advertisers. In addition to the demographic
information the user gives when applying, Third Voice gets a precise
trace of URLS visited by the user, across any and all sites they visit
with the Third Voice plugin enabled. That can be priceless to marketing
boffins.
That is also the sort of privacy concern that causes users on the Web to
flee services like the plague. If you want to marginalize Third Voice,
harping on privacy is a more effective way to do so than trying to bring in
government regulators.
The other major flaw with Third Voice from a user perspective is the
completely open nature of the postings, as you have drawn some attention
to already. This is an important part of their conjectured business model,
but reduces the quality of the content to unacceptable levels.
While it is good to emphasize this, it seems likely that others will take
this annotation idea and use it with limited groups of subscriber/posters,
or strictly with trusted posting authorities. Then the annotations will
have a guaranteed level of quality.
In the simplest case, this is exactly how SurfWatch and other systems for
web censorship work; they simply restrict their commentary on URLS to a
content rating. The government *loves* those services; don't count on
getting interactive URL commentary outlawed any time soon...
Mark Carmichael
This one's from Ken Kashmarek:
As best I can tell, ThirdVoice is a browser plugin. We don't call other
plugin client software, so just call it a plugin.
Next, the concept is simple. The plugin takes the URL of a website (or
web page), ships that URL to the ThirdVoice server, and if the URL
is logged, returns the already posted notes. If not logged, then it
logs that URL and adds it to the database.
By the way, when you register, your are also on the ThirdVoice database,
but as a user.
Therefore, the plugin logs web site access by URL and by user. Guess
what, ThirdVoice is a marketing tool. It is the absolute measure since
it logs every URL you (or any ThirdVoice user) use(s). Its data can be
mined, sold, and used for marketing purposes. Crap on the post-it
notes. That is just the tickler to get you to participate.
When you sign on with ThirdVoice, you give them permission to collect
data on you and the sites you visit.
Over time, the ThirdVoice servers are going to be the busiest on the
web. Every URL access will go to their servers, making them as busy as
the ones from Microsoft. In fact, one wonders why Microsoft hasn't
bought these guys out yet or tried to crush their technology. Why?
Microsoft is already doing this under the covers and really does not
want anybody to be aware of that. I believe that ThirdVoice tracking
could start to show such a pattern.
Ken Kashmarek
This one's from Dan Berkes:
I like the idea of feedback of this type, what I do not like is not being able
to be in control of it - to moderate or remove offensive or inappropriate
postings.
It isn't so much that I'm afraid of some foul-mouthed random idiot polluting my
index page with nasty comments.
What does concern me is that like just about any other useful technology of
this type, eventually spammers will find it and start using it to hijack
advertising on my pages. Legit advertisers are hard as hell to attract and
retain if you're a small content provider. The last thing I need is some
spammer dolt using Third Voice to get a free ride and possibly spooking a
technophobic sponsor in the process.
Until Third Voice offers webmaster the ability to moderate and remove
undesirable comments, my sites will use that hunk of javascript to block
anything from that company.
It's a good idea, just a poorly executed one.
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