Microsoft's Channel9 Adds Ink to Forums?

An anonymous reader asks: "Microsoft's Channel9 forums now support handwritten and hand-drawn comments. The ink comments are displayed as GIF images so anyone can see them, but to add your own message you must use IE and either a Tablet PC or have the Tablet PC SDK installed. Apparently Microsoft is going to make the source code available for the new feature so other sites can add ink support too. Will we be seeing more ink enabled forums in the future, or is Channel9's ink a novelty that will soon be forgotten?"

Hopefully...

[rekenner]

Will we be seeing more ink enabled forums in the future, or is Channel9's ink a novelty that will soon be forgotten?"

.. It will be the latter. This is just going to encourage people to write in illegible handwriting and make forums take EVEN LONGER to load due to EVEN MORE images. Ever looked at some forums? People need to seriously cut the avatars...

Even where images aren't incredibly common... I can't read most of the samples. Oops. What's a forum good for if you can't communicate?

Lord Nolife

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

Listen you insolent noob, I *am* Lord Nolife. I require the proper formalities and respects. That's LORD Nolife to you.

Re:Hopefully...

[paulius_g]

I agree that a lot of forums are very content-rich and make the page impossible to read.

Please also note that I have long signatures with images!

Ink?

[King Rayray]

Using handwriting on a PC is neat, but it's really inefficient. I think going through the trouble of posting on forums with a stylus would be tedious, and eventually irritating. It'll definitely just end up being a novelty, imo.

Re:Ink?

[sgant]

The art of hand writing is dead it seems. But then again, it wasn't very efficient. But when someone actually sits down and writes a letter using a pen, it does give you a warm, fuzzy feeling...that is if you can read their handwriting.

Depends on the target market for your webpage.

[Elwood P Dowd]

Most tablet users are dweeby microsoft-types that probably hang out on Channel 9 message boards. In that regard, it's perfect. However, no, I don't think this is going to take off everywhere else.

worst idea ever

[geoffspear]

It's bad enough trying to read badly typed messages from people who can't spell. Trying to decipher their handwriting at the same time would be unbearable.

Re:worst idea ever

[DJProtoss]

well, you never know - the two might cancel out! And even if they don't, I would say that the worse the spelling on a comment in a forum, the less likely I am to want to be able to read it, so it might be a blessing. Hey, lets just go one step further and boot up adblock...

Have you tried browsing at -1 lately?

[biglig2]

Enable drawings in posts and it'll be a stream of badly drawn pictures of knobs, you know it.

As someone who tries to use his mod points carefully, and so "Browses at -1 to keep an eye out for abuses.", I don't know if I could face it!

Re:Have you tried browsing at -1 lately?

[FidelCatsro]

Yes i think it will be a major boost for internet trolls.
MY first thought was "Fad" then my second thought was "Goat shock trolls" , honestly i dont use the service but i hope it does not catch on as its so open to abuse its unreal .. i honestly cant think of a single good thing that can be achived by having this on a forum(weighed against the negatives that is)

Re:Have you tried browsing at -1 lately?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, that's like saying having text comments will lead to constant knob jokes.
I think this is a great idea. How many times have you tried to explain something to someone in text when a simple diagram would be so much easier?
Examples could be a simple map or a carpentry joint, or an emoticon! :)

No

[rmarll]

Why must insensitive clods go the extra mile to circumvent the handwriting recognition software so I must not only decipher their "language" but their handwriting to boot?!

Apparently I am not in the target audience. And I'll probably not be in the target's audience for long either.

How do you know ...

[Stavr0]

... if a Channel 9 blogger has been using your computer?

<ANSWER effect="rimshot"> There's ink on the monitor.</ANSWER>

Re:How do you know ...

[Sentry21]

Q. How do you know if a Microsoft editor has changed their post?

A. There's white-out over the ink.

Is this what Microsoft considers innovation?

[tyates]

If I could find the programmer who wrote this, I'd throw a copy of Bill Gate's "The Road Ahead" at them. Let's see - forums that you can barely read and you can't search. Good one guys. Makes me wish for the return of the dream team that came up with Microsoft Bob.
http://www.g4tv.com/techtvvault/features/27528/Rem embering_Microsoft_Bob.html [g4tv.com]

I wonder...

[pjf(at)gna.org]

...how are they going to provide content filters ;-)

Am I the only person to think this is pretty cool?

[91degrees]

Totalyl pointless. Probably going to be unsuccesful, and would probably be irritating if it succeeded, but still, it's really quite geeky. And geeky is good.