Email is not dead (yet)
November 28, 2006
The number of times I’ve read Web 2.0 blogs which say that email is dead is astounding. It’s not dead - yet. Three highly publicised examples of email in our local news from the last couple of weeks illustrate the power that email still holds.
Story 1: The emails which brought down a political leader
Leader of the opposition, Dr. Don Brash, recently obtained a High Court order restraining the publication or distribution of copies of email correspondence which was believed to have been stolen from his computer after months of whispers about the contents of said emails.
“The effect of this interim injunction is to restrain the communication by any means, including website, publication, or broadcast, of the contents of the email correspondence. This order also prevents the passing on of the emails to any other person or organisation. The criminal investigation into who stole these emails, and who is in possession of them, is ongoing. The police have yet to give an indication of when their inquiries will be completed.”
The legal action came after rumours surfaced the emails would be published in a book. However, after intense media uproar Dr. Brash quickly lifted the ban and the book came out in stores yesterday, complete with the emails. In the meantime, he stood down as leader of the National Party.
Story 2: Rude email to customer starts chain email and bad PR
Steve Hausman sent this email to a marquee company while planning for his wedding to lawyer Paula Brosnahan:
“Paula and I went and viewed your marquee setup at Devonport … unfortunately we did not like it … thanks for your assistance and we are sorry that it turned out this way.”
The Great Marquee’s office manager, Katrina Jorgensen, emailed back the following:
“Your wedding sounded cheap, nasty and tacky anyway, so we only ever considered you time wasters. Our marquees are for upper class clients which unfortunately you are not. Why don’t you stay within your class levels and buy something from [bargain store] Payless Plastics instead.”
Finally, one of New Zealand’s main ISPs has been struggling with spam and emails have been taking days to turn up, causing a loss of business to some:
“We run a small lodge that depends totally on a functioning internet service as most of our bookings come via it. At least three bookings via email didn’t reach us as people have followed up by phone after not hearing from us.”
The examples you have given are probably the reason why people/organisations are talking about moving away from email as the primary communication tool (as it is in the electronic world, people still talk face-to-face more
Email is powerful but, in some manner, in an increasingly annoying and destructive way - I suspect RSS (and underlying content creation/publication places) and IM will start the take over once the adoption of IE 7 / Vista and mobile computing occur (those running purely on-line are already there).
— Mike Riversdale, November 28, 2006
IM has more potential to be annoying than email. RSS can take over the bulk emails / press releases / news distribution but what about for personal communications — how does RSS work there for initial contacts?
— Rachel, November 28, 2006
Email is a quick, easy, low demand (on the user) means of asynchronous one-to-one (or a specified few) means of communication. Till someone invents a “Web 2.0″ way of achieving these goals (consistently, reliably and near universally) most of us are stuck with it!
— tim bulkeley, November 29, 2006
The likelihood (or even the illusion) of e-mail going away anytime soon is preposterous. Regardless of the annoyances it’s still a viable mode of communication for the world over. Despite unsolicited calls on our phones from telemarketers (even with supposed “do not call” lists) we still use phones. The same is going to be with e-mail. We suffer some annoyances and interruptions to our “productivity” (i.e. playing Mine Sweeper or watching YouTube videos in between documents requiring our attention); but we still use it.
And Mike…don’t even bring up IE7. A buggy, insecure browser that attempts to function like Firefox. BAH! The world does not revolve around Windows nor its proprietary components.
While we might see an evolved form of e-mail surface (like GMail), SMTP/POP3/IMAP protocol isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
— Michael Tangen, November 30, 2006
I found this info very interesting and useful. Thanx a lot.
— Leo, December 18, 2006