There was a time not too long ago when technology bloggers and pundits (myself included) believed that email was going away. We thought that the system would be replaced by Facebook messaging, IM, social networking, and other variations of online communication that were more elegant and less abused than email.
We were wrong. I was wrong.
We failed to see one major flaw in our judgment. Despite so many people being on Facebook and other forms of communication, everyone has an email address. Even with the necessity of many to check their other forms of communication regularly, almost obsessively, email remains an activity that most do at least once a day. The reason that it hasn’t died and likely won’t die any time in the near future is the ability of mobile devices to keep the archaic form of communication ever-accessible and easily-usable.
This infographic from Boston Nissan Dealers explores how mobile technology like smartphones and tablets are fueling the continued growth of email.
Via: Automotive SEO
(Via: Return Path)
1) Why have an interesting start of an article and defer all discussion and conclusion to someone else’s infographic that poorly fits the layout and style of your site.
2) Your editorializing premises are unsupported, how is a disparate network of non-interoperable systems more elegant then a standard like email. Email may have its deficiencies, like repudiation, but at least as you admit, everyone can get it. With current social networking and IM systems you can only use any given mechanism to communication with members present in that network. Facebook event planning is a perfect example of its failure, where you wish to invite all your actual friends to a party, only to find many of them are not even on facebook. Or how often to most people check their facebook messages only after receiving an email notification that one is pending.
I won’t disagree that email in its current form needs a reboot, but the alternatives that exist haven’t replaced email, because for all their bells and whistles they are still inferior.
You thought email was going away? In favor of IM and Facebook nonetheless…
Why are you still allowed to write on this site again?
You and all the other Dummerchen were wrong because IM and Social networking are very transitory mediums, subject to whims and senses of fashion. Email is the base line default minimum form of communication on the net. Everyone has at least one email account if not many more. as Geoffrey states fragmentation is the so called email replacement’s bottleneck.