What is the Future of Email?
By Jeff Hilimire on Tuesday, March 6th, 2007I was thinking the other day about the differences between my generation (think Breakfast Club, Parachute Pants and Members Only Jackets) and today’s kids and how vastly different our communication tendencies are. For instance, if I wanted to send out a message to most or all of my contacts, I’d either send an email or use LinkedIn. If a 15-year-old wants to do that, they’d probably send that message through a site like MySpace or Facebook. If I want to tell someone something quick and short, like “Oh my God Becky, look at her butt”, I might call them or send them a quick instant message. The 15-year-old would most likely text that message with their phone in blazing, I can’t be bothered writing whole words speed - “OMG bky c hr a**?”.
My point is, in ten years when these kids are in the work force, will they be using email the same way that we do today? I hear more and more about college classes communicating via wiki’s and we all know how popular Facebook is with the college crowd, so the idea that they will stop using social websites to communicate once they are out of college may not be a viable one.
The Internet is starting to absorb email as a form of communication. Prior to the past few years, peer-to-peer communication was not easily done through websites. Now its practically built in to every new website that’s created.
So I guess this is the question to the masses, what is the future of email?
I agree that online, more immediate communication will rise to the forefront as the communication mode of choice. But the person you want to talk to is not always immediately available, so there will still be a need to store, sort, search, track, etc those “immediate” messages (which would turn them into more email-like forms).
Besides that, I think email as we think of it today will follow paper down the lifecycle…it will continue to be used when more “formal” communication is required or when something absolutely has to be documented for historical purposes.
Not sure what that says for paper though - sell your stocks in paper manufacturers I guess.
I guess what I’m seeing is that the form that email takes will change. MySpace/Facebook basically uses “email” - you send a message to your list and the message is sent, regardless of whether the person is available at that time or not. And even in Second Life there is “email”. The mechanism by which we receive it is what I think will begin to change.
Jeff - My niece, who is college junior, communicates with me by IM and most recently through our MySpace pages. I’ll drop her a comment and she’ll response with a comment on my page. We rarely email anymore. Interactions are fast and brief.
Speaking of fast and brief what about Twitter?
Some form of email will exist. Will it be reduced to the level of faxing, I am not sure. The thing that struck me is the change that will happen in the hiring process. Gen Y or (Why)- a la Eric Chester, may create a Facebook or MySpace page rather than a resume. How will the information they are putting up onto the web now and it is saved out in space forever impact their ability to get a job in the future? Is it a virtual tattoo or drug use which could road block future career choices? How will this impact the written and spoken languages? I am sure English is not the only language being abbreviated to the point of needing to be able to solve license plate saying to communicate with the “Y’ers”. Grandparents are now having to add texting packages onto their cell phones to be able to talk to their cherubs. Geez when they were in high school and college, many of them had an operator or a parent listening in on the party line. What is next for GenZ?