Goodbye to E-Mail?
A very interesting article by Peter Coffee. It has me thinking about what the next generation of messaging will look like. It's hard to imagine in someways, but think about how you get the direct phone line of a person at a given company. Generally you get this information when you receive a business card from them (which, albeit usually includes their e-mail address too) or if you call through a company's main switchboard, you might get passed through to them. Once you are talking with the person you might be able to get their direct line (and e-mail) if they are interested or want you to easily contact them in the future. Maybe e-mail could work in a similar way. If you have a business card (electronic or physicial) you obviously can just type in their address and you're off to the races. Then what about a system where their is an electronic attendant, so in an e-mail you might send to switchboard@companyx.com and have a subject of Message for John Smith and that could be forwarded via name matching. Who knows, but the reality is that the current system of e-mail will start to collapse soon. I know that often my friends, family, and colleagues have e-mails delayed by hours or days and I think it is related to the sheer amount of e-mail traffic moving through the Net.
Something to watch for sure.
“E-mail abuse has enterprises exploring other options.
Earlier this month, I convened a panel discussion on spam at the Los Angeles debut of Ziff Davis Media's Business4Site conferences. In preparing my charts for that session, I was forced to consider just how bad the situation has become for enterprise e-mail users during the last several weeks. I found data suggesting that some enterprises are ready to move from the prototype phase of next-generation communications, based on cheap but uncontrollable e-mail, to more robust approaches using portals or application-to-application links.”