November 15th, 2007

Email Is NOT Dead

by Scott Karp

The death of email meme is completely absurd. Email is NOT going to die because, as Charlie O’Donnell points out, EVERYONE HAS EMAIL. That’s why we all get so much spam and other useless email — because it’s a guaranteed way to reach us.

Inboxes are getting flooded by email from other online communication services like Facebook, Twitter, Pownce, etc. because EVERYONE HAS EMAIL — it’s the only truly universal form of online communication. So much so that all of these web services have to use it as a proxy.

In fact, the proliferation of non-interoperable web communication services (i.e. Facebook vs. MySapce, IM vs. IM, Twitter vs. Pownce) ensures that email will not die any time soon. Just like Skype didn’t kill the phone number — not every is on Skype, but everyone has a phone number.

Until you graduate from college, the only communications that really matter are from your friends, so you can use any new fangled platform that every agrees to adopt. Once you graduate from college, email takes over because EVERYONE HAS EMAIL. The teenagers who were using IM when email’s death was first predicted are now in their late twenties — we can resurrect this meme over and over, but it ain’t gonna happen.

Thomas Hawk bemoans all the useless email he gets, but that only demonstrates the power of email. If he dumped email and started doing all his communication through Facebook or Pownce or whatever, you can be sure the spam and communications he doesn’t have time to answer would follow him.

Email is just the messanger — and a damn effective one.

Topics: Hype | Social Networking | Web 2.0

  • E-mail is not dead, but it does have a few fundamental flaws that need correction. I have written a few times about this. Given the overhyped reactions to Facebook, I never really understood why Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft haven't fundamentally improved email yet. They already have the user base, so that is covered. When looking at e-mail from a user perspective, it becomes easy to think of (social) improvements for it.
    If interested, I wrote 9 requests (post got too long)to improve e-mail. some of these might actually get implemented now I hope:
    http://vanelsas.wordpress.com/...

  • Scott -

    AMEN! Its completely absurd. Email is the DRIVER, the connector, and whether people want to believe it or not, its role is shifting and becoming more important than ever. This is in regards to it as a marketing medium as well as a social medium.

    Email is the currency of all accounts for all of these other services, and isn't going anywhere :-)

    Thanks for your post.

    - Greg

  • You're right on the mark. The ubiquity of e-mail vs. Twitter, Facebook, et al is why is will continue to rule the roost.

  • JSmith

    So your point is that trends that start out in a new generation aren't really trends because when those teens reach their twenties their learned behavior is overwhelmed by the behavior of the last generation?

    Good theory.

    I can't email my 14 year old daughter because she doesn't use email. She also doesn't have a phone in her room (the teenage cliche of the last-last generation).

    That's not going to change when she graduates college.

    That's why all those damned new-fangled computers never made it into the business world -- all those IBM Selectrics!

    Nonsensical.

  • Scott, you are right. There is no way email is going to die so soon. Also, when people talk about a "closed system" replacing an "open system" like email, it amuses me. The main reason why email was successful in the business community is because anyone can contact you through email (an "open system") much like the postal mail or telephone. Twitter, Facebook, IMs ("closed systems" where one needs to get approved before they could even communicate) may replace email to a certain extent. Such "closed systems" cannot kill email. If at all email is getting killed, it will be done only by another "open system" that can perform better than email.

blog comments powered by Disqus

Subscribe

Receive new posts by email

Recent Posts