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The novelty of voice chats via computer -- especially with AOL's reputation for hassle-free, dummy-proof technology -- would appeal to anyone. But AIM 4.0 isn't nearly that good yet. Many of my colleagues volunteered to play Thomas Watson to my Alexander Graham Bell to try out this new gizmo, but it took a full day of fiddling with microphones and my office laptop before I was finally able to make voice contact and to utter the proverbial "Watson, come here" over a crackly connection. Some of my difficulties may have had more to do with the bad sound system on my office laptop computer than AIM. But even after I solved that problem and established a voice connection, the conversation I had with a co-worker was faint and halting. It was more like a broken walkie-talkie communiqué than the smooth-flowing phone conversations we're used to. One thing's for sure: While AOL might keep improving the technology, AIM 4.0 won't replace Bell's invention anytime soon. WALL-TO-WALL TROUBLE. AOL says AIM's voice chat should be easy. In theory, anyone with a computer equipped with Internet access, a speaker, and a microphone can place and receive calls. Most computers today have speakers, but users may have to go out and buy a mike to plug into the terminal. After that, it's a cinch to download AIM 4.0 from AOL's Web site (www.aol.com/aim). (The software isn't available on AOL's online service yet.) Why did I have so many problems? Part of it was my equipment: AIM works best with consumer gear. Sound systems in corporate laptops can be inferior to those in their consumer counterparts. That was true in my case. Regular computer mikes did not work on my office-issue IBM ThinkPad, and I ended up having to use an all-digital USB mike that bypasses the laptop's sound system. Then I ran into a common snag with AOL software, meant to be used primarily from home computers. AIM 4.0 had trouble working behind corporate firewalls. My first Watson was a co-worker's daughter, Erin Harbrecht, a freshman at Clemson University in South Carolina and an avid AOL instant messager. We couldn't establish a voice connection, presumably because both of our computers operated behind firewalls -- mine behind Business Week's and hers behind Clemson's. We could still instant-message each other via typed e-mail, but we couldn't talk. AOL says AIM's voice chat should work if nobody is behind a firewall (as most home users aren't), if only one person is behind one, or if both people are behind the same one. WAIT YOUR TURN. Next, I turned to a colleague who works with me safely behind the Business Week firewall -- and one who happens to have a big Dell PC, not a laptop. Eureka! We managed to have a conversation. But it still wasn't great. We learned that AIM talk requires some skill. As with a walkie-talkie, the person who wants to talk must press a button. When she's done and wants to listen to the response, she presses a button to listen. The other person can't talk while her partner is talking. For phone users, this takes some getting used to. As expected with conversations over the Internet, there's also a delay between the time someone says something and the time the voice is heard on the other end. And the sound isn't as clear as we're used to on phones. But AIM does allow users to adjust volume, balance, and other audio controls, and jiggling the settings helped. While it was fun finally to talk via computer, the uneven sound and walkie-talkie controls may bring you to a simple conclusion: Why not just pick up the phone? But many home users may not run into as many hurdles I did. And they may be intrigued enough by the novelty of this new feature, as I was, to get a microphone and try it out. Once the technology improves, it could conceivably become as popular as AOL's text-based messaging. Today, 50 million registered users log on to that service for an average of three hours a day, compared with the 22 million subscribers of AOL's online service who log on for an average of 65 minutes a day. Today, consumers have choices other than AOL to try out voice chat, and some of them are better than AOL's so far. Popular portals Yahoo! and Excite@Home have similar features. Yahoo, for one, has introduced voice-based IM to its chat rooms, as well as for one-on-one messaging and private group conversations. AOL hasn't done that yet. Yahoo's chat room voice feature worked fine from my home Compaq Presario laptop. And because chat often consists of short statements, crackly sound wasn't as much of an annoyance. AOL's goal probably isn't to replace the telephone -- at least not just yet. Until ease of use and sound quality improve, its voice chat will remain a gee-whiz curiosity. Yang is a Business Week technology correspondent based in Washington. Susan Straight and Steve Wildstrom in Washington contributed to this review |
