Re: Steal this post

In a message dated 1/10/02 2:21:49 AM Eastern Standard Time, chas@munat.com 
writes:


> Imagine that this data was stored with your "letter." Now a "reader" of 
> this web site comes to it and chooses your letter. The computer might 
> ask some questions of that reader (language, culture, age, etc.) and 
> then render your letter in an entirely different manner, choosing the 
> manner that is most likely to convey the same information (including 
> meta-information) to that particular visitor.

       While this is all an intensely worthy thought...There's a big problem: 
Privacy. People are already scared about privacy and security on the web, and 
the net as a whole. There's no WAY you're going to get people to reveal that 
personal of information on a regular basis. Also, some of those terms are 
incredibly vague. Culture? How would your average American know which CULTURE 
he's in? He can't even find his own country on a map, or even bigger 
countries like Russia. (And before we go on about how the net isn't just used 
by Americans: I know. However, Americans are the largest proportion of the 
users, and the only relevant market for most of the firms online.) He has no 
clue about such things as cultures. Let alone the people set in-between 
cultures or subcultures...or, God help us, teenagers.

John