The death of email?

You may want to relocate this, but it didn't seem serious enough for SD, and it's more of a general observation.

Anyway, I was talking to a friend the other day and we made the observation that neither of us has received a genuine email for some time, and aside from two business emails recently, I hadn't sent anything for perhaps longer. With the rapid growth and development of both messenger services (some such as MSN can now send offline messages) and social networking, and even things like tech support being built into websites, for many people email accounts now serve only to receive website alerts, newsletters and spam.

Thoughts? Is email a dying technology, does it just need an overhaul, or should we move on to an existing (or even new) means of communication?

Yeah, I mostly get junk related to forums and sites I'm on like Fakku, MAL, JTV, etc...

I rarely send and receive e-mail from my sister, but that's about the extent of actual communication I have via e-mail.

hmm now you mention it i haven't had a non buisness email in AGES

I would disagree, personally.
E-mail still plays a vital role in the business world, and will in my opinion continue to do so for quite some time, as it is a highly standardized, simple protocol that is at the same time highly versatile and can be digested by an enormous host of devices through very simple means.

Sending offline messages isn't exactly a new feature; I remember messengers doing that as early as 1998. The problem with messengers is the swath of different protocols that often offer no, or very poor interoperability, and require a protocol-specific client.

Should there ever be a move from email to instant-messaging however, it would meet - immediately - the same fate as e-mail. SPIM is already a common enough phenomenon.

I see the whole messenger/e-mail thing the same as phones and mailboxes, myself... Each has their uses.

yes I think that mobile phone texting have taken over as
the easiest and fastest way to communicate. Almost all operators
have offers like if you pay a fee every month you have 5000 free texts.

There's just no need to log in and send emails anymore,
when you can text someone instead.

Business was my main consideration against it, but then might networking be a natural progression? The provision of a secure business collective, whereby you join a group or website system and are presented with contact information for all employees, departments etcetera, seems to hold obvious benefits; wide area networks and secure use profiles already exist in many national/international organisations, it would just need the investment. Clearly there is no pressing need, but I was only ever suggesting that this might be a near-future step; with the increasing awareness and reliance on IT systems, such ideas are more likely to be presented, and there are always ageing systems which need replacing.

If your networking idea refers to an externally provided website, then that is extremely unlikely to ever happen. No company of some size in their right mind would entrust their company-internal communications to an external platform. Inside information is so valuable an asset and company espionage such enormous a problem that this would be far too risky.

If your concept refers to an intranet-based messaging system of sorts, then the question is what the benefit would be. E-mail has a hilariously small foot-print, and is yet so versatile, that I fail to see the advantage of replacing it with a website system.

Fair point on the website; the other idea was indeed an intranet messaging system of sorts, as like I say, the infrastructure is there already. The only advantages would be the messenger element (speed, slight improvement in ease of use, see when people are logged in etc) within a secure, internal network. To be honest, I've pretty much had to invent a line of argument here; I'd had vague thoughts on business application, and you swiftly backed me into a corner. :P I suppose my question is more, with the rise of other means of communication and the fall of email elsewhere, whether it would either become business-only (or at least very much business-centric), or whether they would make the same kind of switch - that could be for support reasons, developments in technology etc.

Those aren't necessarily advantages in a work environment, if you look at them. As is, e-mail is already THE biggest time-sink and productivity-inhibiting communicative element in the daily routine of any office-based employee. Corporations are actually trying to limit the time people spend with e-mail, because it takes away so much time from their productive work-flow.
Now, take the immediacy ("speed") of instant messaging, and you end up with people wasting even more times with unproductive communication. I know of several corporations (one of which is one of Europe's largest petroleum companies) which have effectively banned the in-house use of IMs between staff, because it was even more problematic than e-mail.



I suppose there will of course be something to supplant e-mail someday. However, with current plans of several European governments to install e-mail as an electronic signed document, that development may actually be slightly stalled to some degree.
That aside, I rather think IMs and e-mail will continue to co-exist for quite a while yet, due to their inherently different character. IMs are more suited to immediate, short-text dialogic discourse, whereas e-mail lends it self better to the communication of larger amounts of text and or documents.

But, perhaps I'm just biased. Personally speaking, e-mail is something quite close to a formal letter, while instant messages are rather intimate, fast-paced small bits, closer to a phone call; I keep my instant messenger contact under even closer lock and key than my e-mail address (because of its intimate, private nature). I would never want to give one up in favour of the other.

Nah email is going nowhere. I still use it. I have like 4 email addresses...

E-mail lets people on differing networks communicate. It's useful socially, in lieu of myspace/facebook, and in business communications.

Email is going away because it's a slower form of communication. People need instant answers and replies in order to make decisions. This is were IM, texting and cellphones are.

I still shoot emails to my friends but I don't expect them to reply for like maybe a week or something.

Email is slow and files these days are usually bigger than what it allows you to send. While great for letters, messenger is faster and more directed towards simple conversations. Free texting basically. Plus most messengees can send large files now too

this is true.

but email gonna dead. no.

I DON'T GET MAIL THAT OFTEN, BUT THE US POSTAL SERVICE RAKES IN CASH LIKE A BITCH ON THE CORNER. Maybe better.

Hand out your email to people more often and maybe take the time out to write to someone.

I get about ten e-mails a day and about 3 of them are junk. Perhaps you should be more selective about handing out your address. Anyway's I don't think e-mail is dying. It's more like it's purpose is changing.