Thu Jan 5, 2012
Resolution #27: Sort through the 250 unread emails in my inbox.
That dreaded resolution sound familiar? How about taking it one step further and eliminating email altogether? A few weeks ago the IT firm Atos made waves when they revealed they were phasing out internal emails in favour of other networking tools. That got me thinking that email is dying a slow death for personal use as well.
Email was invented in 1972 and has had a good run, but it’s time to move on. Let’s take a look at the facts:
Texting and IM has become more of the norm.
Networks like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn allow you to stay in touch with friends and colleagues.
Email newsletters are dying in the face of highly personalized reading tools like Google Reader, Flipboard, and Instapaper.
Free organizational tools like Evernote allows you to create tagged notes and task-oriented lists. No need to email yourself anymore.
Web browsers like Firefox can be synced so that all your bookmarks, history, etc. is available on any computer.
Smartphones offer instant notifications from all of the above and has become the communication nexus for most people (no pun intended).
Official organizations like your bank or the government won’t even touch email because of security issues. Yep, still a fax or phone call for these guys.
That leaves email as nothing more than a digital garbage can for junk mail. And who wants to waste their precious time being an online janitor? Not many. So forgive your grand-kids for laughing at this quaint “email” you tell them about - it’s just so 70s, man.