The death of Email

[andrewducker]

There's something about e-mail that demands a reply, demands a response. But when you’re getting thousands of these things, it becomes an impossibility to respond to everything. So we’ve got to shift the etiquette, and maybe make e-mail more like publishing: that is, you send something out and you might get one percent response. I think that the paradigm of e-mail as letters, as objects, is inappropriate. I'm waiting for a shift to the timeline, rather than the object, as the organizing principle. If you think about a blog for instance, that’s a timeline. And it’s a really good way of organizing huge amounts of information, because we’re quite good at sequencing.

From here.

[Poll #149870]

Comments

[diffrentcolours]

You forgot "IRC".

[andrewducker]

It's an instant messenging tool. It may largely be used to mass chats, but you can do that in MSN too.

As far as I know, there's no massive different in functionality between MSN and IRC - both allow you to have synchronous communication either one on one or in a group.

[diffrentcolours]

Instant messaging clients are so called to differentiate themselves from IRC.

It's not so much a matter of functionality as common usage - most people use IRC for broadcasting and IM for narrowcasting. The two have very different cultures and user bases.

[andrewducker]

However, in this context I'm happy to treat them as being similar enough.

I didn't include 'bulletin boards' or "diaryland" either, despite them being different enough to be worth covering in some ways.

[drainboy.livejournal.com]

Really depends on the friend and their primary mode of communication and the context of the communication in question.

I'd say all of them to some degree.

Probably Email most of all, but maybe messenger, depending. Dammit, it's too vague

[gwenix.livejournal.com]

Can't answer this question, it depends on the friend.

[moniqueleigh]

Ditto. If all my friends had LJ, that's probably how I'd prefer it. But hell, all of my friends don't even have email, much less LJ or IM...

[cleodhna.livejournal.com]

I do find the absence of telephony unusual. Does nobody use 'phones for anything?

[andrewducker]

I phone my mum twice a week, she being the only person I know who doesn't check her email daily. Except for my grandmother, who gets a 3-monthly letter.

Other than that, I never phone anyone uless I have a specific thing to say that needs answering then/there, or am saying "I'm outside Sainsburies, where are you?" in an attempt to meet up with people.