The Decline and Fall of Email

Re:The Decline and Fall of Email by ergo98 on Sunday November 28, 2010 @09:52AM (#1947422)

But if they're not putting their opinions and thoughts out there, it's doubtful they were getting responses in any form.

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Re:The Decline and Fall of Email by Goladus on Sunday November 28, 2010 @11:07AM (#1947536)

There are plenty of reasons to contact someone other than responding to an opinion on a blog.

I've got a dozen emails in my inbox right now from friends, contacts, and organizations like the choir I sing in.

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Re:The Decline and Fall of Email by ergo98 on Sunday November 28, 2010 @01:06PM (#1947761)

For sure. Unlike the RIM story of yesterday, he isn't claiming it's dead. He just talks about the decline and fall.

And I think there's a lot of truth to it. I don't quite buy the junk mail argument -- I publicly publish my email address everywhere because junk mail is generally a solved problem -- however I just think there are a lot of other options that have added value or lower friction.

A big personal use of email previously (5+ years ago) was the sending of pictures. You know -- the relative that sends you the 20 5MB pictures. Thankfully that is a thing of the past now, and people either post them on Facebook, Flickr, etc.

How about sharing other types of files? It was a major problem when Outlook started banning a lot of file types because that impeded how a lot of people used email. Now every uses Dropbox and other avenues to distribute files.

Perhaps the reality is just that email was, for a time, used for a lot of things that it wasn't appropriate for, and now it's back to its core value.

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