People who talk about the death of email are generally in businesses that make money in other segments for which the success of email is an impediment to their success.

They tend to focus on rather a small segment that has changed their communication patterns, their immediate group, or family… They forget that currently there’s no alternative to communicate in a formal way other than email. If the alternative comes along then email will be dead, like letter writing is in business today.

Where the conversation has shifted away from email is “chat’ing.”

Email preceded the onslaught of SMS, and IM, and it was therefore used for a time for more informal quick communications. That has shifted to SMS and IM.

The hinderance in IM has been the many competing systems. We still do not have a universal IM system that reaches everyone via one IM account… at least in the way that your telephone number and SMS does.

However the failure of SMS as it is usually country specific due to that limitation.

Email replaced the fax, and FedEx to a large degree for sending letters or business letter.

Are the failing of any of these a fault of the technology, or a lack of
experience of the user who is using the technology? Both. We take a technology and we poke prod and otherwise cajole it into forcing it to communicate the way we want to. SMS has been around for years, but it’s explosion has only been more recent. It was a beeper technology that has found a home among phones.

What we end up with is:

• SMS: National quick short personal and informative based communication.
• Email: Global long-form business and replacement for personal letter writing. Attachment laden communication for transferring documents as replacement for FedEx. Email moves message but it is very sloppy with what it does with data afterwards. Everyone still has to come up with their own ways of saving, accessing, keeping track of that information, as well as figuring out how to create reminders, ticklers, action plans etc. Email is sensationally bad at all of this.
• IM: Global instant distraction from work. Less intrusive than phone call. Easier than walking down hall for multi-threaded conversation. IM is far better for “you have time for a quick question?,” when in reality the asynchronous nature of time attention would serve that question being answered when we have time, however in IM the initial IM’er is the “top,” while the receiver is the “bottom” in communications.
• Wiki’s: Far better for sharing information, but the open collaborative power dynamic is alien to those who use IM and TXT to control what they want, when they want it. The Wiki is confusing to them as they are inward focused. However, Wiki’s are still a transitional technology for personal and business communication. Wikipedia demonstrated the value en mass of harnessing the masses as a global consciousness, however for business purposes and personal communication they need to get a certain amount of traction before being adopted. They mainly sit as albatrosses once setup as a storage place where ideas go to die.

Email is a billion dollar segment that keeps growing, and with behavioral targeting getting more sophisticated, I don’t see that growth diminishing any time soon.

You see, we use all of these mediums on how it is most convenient for us to communicate. Not what is most convenient for the person receiving the communication. We are selfish time starved beings who extract what we want from communications.

It is a societal reflection of the segmenting media market. Have an issue with someone? Then you are not as likely to call as you are to use email. You are lobbing a communication hand grenade. A hot potato that you do not want to touch. Get a TXT you do not want to respond to? Then you “just got it” hours later when you respond… We lie, mask our feelings and do not want confrontation.

You know what? Pick up the phone, call someone, and listen. It’s still the best form of distant communication we have going for us.

“Reach out and touch someone.”