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Don’t feel like talking? Order a missed cell phone call
MATT RICHTEL; The New York Times
Published: north face hyvent August 3rd, 2008 07:09 AM | Updated: August 3rd, 2008 07:09 AM
When Alexis Gorman, 26, wanted to tell a man she had been dating that the courtship was over, she felt sending a Dear John text message was too impersonal. But she worried that if she called face fisted tabs the man, she would face an awkward conversation or a confrontation.
So she found a middle ground. She broke it off in a voice mail message, using native amarican face new technology that allowed her to jump directly to the suitor’s voice mail, without ever having to talk to the man – or risk his actually answering the phone.
The technology, called Slydial, lets callers dial a mobile phone but avoid an unwanted conversation – or unwanted intimacy – on the other end. The incoming call goes undetected by the recipient, who simply receives the traditional ping indicating a voice mail.
Gorman used a test version of Slydial that has been available for months. But since the finished product was unveiled to the public last week, more than face shot 200,000 people have used the service, which is supported by advertisers such as McDonald’s.
MISS THEM – antique watch face ON PURPOSE
The concept may two face action figure sound antithetical to a digital era defined by ubiquitous communication and interactivity, but Slydial turns out to be only the latest in a breed of new technologies that fit squarely into an emerging paradox: tools that let users avoid direct communication.
Technologies like e-mailing and blogging give the communicator the power to choose the time and manner of expression. Now, some academics, text messagers and creators of technologies say a trend has emerged: We are constantly just missing one another – on purpose.
But Gorman, who works in marketing in Manhattan, said that using Slydial to break off her relationship allowed her to communicate effectively without the potential anxiety.
“Text messaging someone ‘I would prefer not to see you again’ is really not my style,” she added. “But at north face gortex shoes the same time, I wanted to avoid an awkward conversation.”
The company behind Slydial is not denying its duplicitous implications. The company’s Web site, MobileSphere, suggests several appropriate uses of Slydial, including leaving a message for a girlfriend who is a “talker” to avoid a long conversation, and for a wife when her husband does not want to talk about how much he lost at the tables in Las Vegas during a business trip.
A LESS HONORABLE APPROACH?
An array of recent innovations by other companies has encouraged the use of technology to deceive. One development, for instance, allows the employee who is running late to add background noises resembling heavy traffic to a mobile phone call.
MobileSphere’s co-founder, Gavin Macomber, said the tool was a time-saver in a world in which conversations could waste time, swelling in the face alchol whereas voice mail can get directly to the point.
Macomber declined to say precisely how the technology bypassed the traditional calling system, noting that the concept was covered by definiton of face off a pending patent.
Slydial is free, but users must listen to several seconds of advertisements before going into a voice mail.
It is a small price to pay, said Manny Mamakas, blow smoke in my face 34, a consultant who lives in the Astoria section of Queens and who said he had been using the test version of Slydial to call family members, like his cousins and two brothers.
“I don’t want to get into ‘hey, what’s going on, how you doing?’” Mamakas said. “I just get to the point.”
He acknowledges that the technology encourages a perhaps not-so-valiant character trait.
“It does make you more cowardly,” he said.
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