The game development industry has been busting at the seams with buzz about game development for cell phones. But what about games for the telephone everyone has at home?

And I'm not talking about odds-based contests, where you may or may not win a prize depending on if you're the lucky caller. I'm talking about games that people actually want to call in and interact with on a daily basis -- for fun.

Think about the potential:
* Everyone has the required gaming console at home (neither Sony nor Nintendo can beat that).
* People are familiar with the interface and may already engage in fun via phones (e.g. chat lines, walkie talkies, etc.)
* Inherent ability to support a multi-player environment (everyone is calling into a central location, can have a DB, etc.)

I believe the market is just waiting for the first killer app, and then this unknown industry will break wide open.

Posted by Vance at 02:03 PM | Permalink

Cory has started a thread below encouraging people to share their IVR pet peeves. I want to open up a thread to explore the flip side - times when an IVR really gets things right.

I opened a new savings account a few months back, and this weekend called the bank for the first time. The first thing their IVR did right was immediately tell me how many people were ahead of me in the queue, and then offer me the choice of live or self service.

Since I hadn't been able to find the answer to my question on the website, I chose to wait for live service, and it was after my call was answered by an agent that the bank really distinguished itself. The representative asked me for my account number, and then briefly transferred me back to the IVR to enter my PIN number - the same two pieces of information I use to authenticate myself in all my interactions with the bank, and something I felt much more comfortable doing in a potentially public environment than giving the agent my social security number and mother's maiden name.

Share your favorite IVR experience in the comments below.

Continue reading "Sometimes, automated customer service makes me feel good" »

Posted by Amy at 10:37 AM | Permalink

There are many reasons why storing data in XML format is often a great choice, not the least of which is that it results in data which is easily human-readable. Please, voice browser developers, apply this same concept when developing your voice browser's log files! Not that logs should be in XML, but they should serve their purpose: while debugging, it should be easy to scan through the log and find what you need.

I spent a good deal of this afternoon working my way through the arcane logs of a particular voice browser, trying to determine why a particular VoiceXML file was causing errors. To find the error in question, each time I ran a test call I then had to scroll through over 20 pages of unrelated information, and scan it with a fine-toothed comb to find the one line I needed. To say it was tedious would be an understatement.

On the other hand, some vendors have it right. Using the online TellMe voice browser logs is a pleasure, I wish more voice browser developers would follow this model. Yes, there is sometimes a need for lots (20 pages even) of technical information. But 90% of the time, I am looking through the logs for a simple error; make it easy to find.

Posted by Vance at 04:31 PM | Permalink

We've been expanding our development team lately, and that means lots of developers who are suddenly tasked with becoming VoiceXML certified. Having gone through this myself (I'm certified, now if only the VoiceXML Forum would update their Certified Developer's list), I am often asked "how much do I need to study?".

There is a lot of content to cover for this exam, I spent about a month studying before my exam and I feel comfortable recommending the same to others. As VoiceXML developers, we're lucky to have a user-friendly specification to study from, unlike some other languages. It's actually quite remarkable that both platform developers and application developers study and work from the same source (the spec). How many people do you know that learned Java from the Java spec?

Spend at least half of your time reading and working with the spec, and the other half of your time studying from a good VoiceXML book or two, and give yourself at least a month to absorb the material.

Posted by Vance at 09:08 AM | Permalink