Email Is Dead
RossMayfield is joining the ranks of people talking about how broken our email system is. Most people seem to think that IntelligentAgents or filtering services (eg. SpamAssassin or SpamBayes) will be the solution. I'm coming to believe that all our smart filters are actually making things significantly worse for the "common man" by contributing to the "spam arms race", while offering only marginal improvements for the techophiles. Some are talking about UsingRss to replace email and email lists while others like BillSeitz think that we're bundling too many issues together and need to take a step back and reconsider the problem.
What is clear is that lots of people, especially the technophiles, are sick to death of all the crap they are getting in their email. What's not clear is whether it's actually the email infrastructure itself that's about to collaspse from systemic failure.
Comments
A cultural or maybe social understanding that networks are probabilistic beasts unlike their supposedly deterministic computer brethren goes a long way. Now if I could only explain to my boss why I didn't receive my email... yeah... face-to-face, telephone, instant messaging (in that trust order). -- DarrinEden
I'm not sure that I buy that networks are probabilistic ... show me your proof Mr. President.
-- Adam.