* Readers weigh in with their views on why they use e-mail
My recent article questioning whether or not e-mail was losing out to newer communication technologies generated quite a bit of response; here’s a sample of the comments that I received from readers:
* “E-mail isn’t dying, it’s blending in with the rest and will continue until users don’t know or care about the difference. (Do they now? I doubt it.) We’re converging e-mail, fax and phone and delivering them through handhelds. IM and text messaging both can fit into or on any hardware that can support e-mail, so they’re all coming together. They’re mixing with other applications, like Office and I don’t see any of them dying – they’re all being used more.”
* “The problem with all these technologies is that contact with individuals gets less and less and more bits get sent and things don’t get done…it’s easy to ignore them. Does IM improve this at all? Not in your wildest dreams. People can just ignore you faster.”
* “I agree with your findings – that IM is complementary to e-mail. I actually think IM is a replacement to phone calls. [IM is] short and sweet – [it] starts the communication thread, but the thread always finishes in some other medium.”
* “Why I use e-mail: it allows me to research, to rewrite, to send when I’m ready and to save a paper trail. Why I don’t use instant messaging (at all): it’s the Return Receipt on steroids. It’s an imposition. It’s an interruption. Why I don’t use text messaging (at all): if it’s so urgent that it can’t wait, why not call? And if it’s being typed in on a cell phone, how bizarre is that?”
* “Adding to its teetering status as king of the communications hill, e-mail’s popularity is not only under pressure from these new communications technologies but also from some ‘oldies and goodies’ like faxing. I am constantly amazed at the companies large and small who continue to ignore e-mail delivery in favor of faxing when it comes to their really business-critical documents (legal and financial instruments, health information, bills, invoices, mortgage applications, real estate data and the like). There is something certain and real about receiving a fax that e-mail still lacks as a document delivery platform.”
Many thanks to everyone who provided their feedback on the article.
