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What Would a Post-Email World Look Like?

Posted by Soulskill on from the so-much-more-free-time dept.

jfruh writes "Pundits have been gleefully predicting the death of email for years, but nobody has really been able to explain what will replace email, especially for the medium's archiving capabilities that businesses and governments have come to rely on. It's possible that email won't vanish, but rather become invisible, one component of an integrated communication stream that will be transparent to users but still present — and useful — under the hood. It may turn out that Google's Wave, which was built on this idea, was just a bit ahead of its time."

9 of 314 comments (clear)

  1. If my work inbox is any indication... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    It isn't going away soon.

    1. Re:If my work inbox is any indication... by Jerry+Atrick · · Score: 5, Interesting

      My email has been 'a conversation' since the I first used it in the early 90's. Maybe with some of the more crippled web based services people are now suffering with it's not so obvious. Stuff like Gmail feels like a step back from the threaded clients I've used for all that time, too much missing or poorly implemented.

      When people ask whether email is going away I'm completely dumbfounded. It ain't broke and IMHO works better than the alternatives where absolute, instant response isn't needed. Mostly it's not noticeably slower anyway. When I desperately need a little more speed IM does a good imitation of a very poorly featured email exchange.

  2. Well by Spad · · Score: 5, Funny

    Presumably it will join the keyboard and mouse, which have apparently been just about to become obsolete for most of the last 15 years.

    Not that it will matter, of course, because the Internet is mere weeks away from becoming catastrophically overloaded & falling apart and it has been for years.

  3. What's email? by jaymz666 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Is it defined as messages sent via SMTP? Or just electronic messages?
    There was email before SMTP, there will be email after SMTP. Messages between two users on a BBS was email, messages between a couple of users on facebook is email. So, no, it won't go away.

    1. Re:What's email? by scrib · · Score: 5, Insightful

      By that logic, email existed before the telephone. They just called it a "telegram."

      --
      Help! Help! I'm being repressed!
  4. What would a post-pundit world look like? by PeanutButterBreath · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A guy can dream. . .

  5. i have an idea! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Let's take a proven, non-centralized, robust, simple, optionally private, easily implemented, open standard that anyone implement from the RFCs, and anyone can run on their very own computer, and replace it with something centrally controlled, ideally by the UN, US, EU, or Coast Guard, proprietary, make it that people cannot reasonably run their own servers, or implement it from scratch. Bonus points if it can be another vector to deliver advertizements to eyeballs, and tightly controlled so those ads cannot be blocked by end users.

    That should fit pretty well with the direction the internet has been going.

  6. Re:Video mail will replace email. by ubrgeek · · Score: 5, Funny

    And it will be replaced by flying cars and personal jetpacks.

    --
    Bark less. Wag more.
  7. Re:As long as... by qwerty+shrdlu · · Score: 5, Funny

    Kevin Costner could deliver your messages by hand.

    And seriously, things might have to go that wrong before email goes away.