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CATEGORIESIs Email Still Fun?
November 4th, 2007“I turn on my computer. I wait impatiently as it connects. I go online, and my breath catches in my chest until I hear three little words: You’ve. got. mail. I hear nothing. Not even a sound on the streets of New York, just the beating of my own heart. I have mail.” ~ Kathleen Kelly, “You’ve Got Mail”
Today I was working in Firefox, and I decided to close the ubiquitous (for me) tab that was open to Yahoo! Mail, and, as I did so, I recall thinking: “I’ll just check back later, maybe I will get something good.”
This got me thinking — is checking your email fun anymore? It sure used to be, but now I hear people complain about the vastness of their inbox far more than I hear anyone talk like Kathleen Kelly (not that anyone was ever that gushing, but, at one time, people certainly loved email).
Perhaps email has just become like regular mail, where we get mostly junk, but still get that little twinge of anticipation each time we open the mailbox, because today could just be the day where something special lies inside.
[...] all the details here [...]
I hate email. Anything I actually want to know, I get over instant messenger, in a text message, or – gasp! – from a phone call. I regularly don’t even open outlook at work. I check my email at home once a day. It’s all junk. It’s almost at the point where it’s equally inefficient as phone calls. I don’t email anything important to my friends, because I’m afraid they won’t notice it, won’t check their mail in time, or won’t bother to reply.
email yes has become a place for nothing more than junk mail…well for the most part!
I have two accounts one that is purely for those sites you need to give out your email… (i didn’t give the junk email here.) and the other for friends, set with filters so i no longer get the how to make your unit larger in five days.
personally i love good emails Kenneth Cole good god some of those are amazing designs… but at last about 90% of the world does not get off on great designs like i do. so what you may call junk i call amazing. its all in the eye of the beholder… but yes i truly wish we could string up these fools that send out all the trash email. what i sign up for is what i want… nothing more!
This post reminded me instantly of an article I read recently @ Slate called “The Death Of Email.” I’d also read an interesting article on teen email habits over at MediaPost, which has had me thinking about email. I was discussing it with wife and friends this weekend and the consensus was that electronic communication is simply getting more specialized, and it actually makes sense. Where we 30-somethings will email a group of friends to suggest a movie, teens use Text-Messaging for this type of communication. It makes perfect sense – why use email for a message that it only a sentence long? The MediaPost article suggested (rightly, I think) that teen habits (specialization) will eventually percolate through the population as people get more comfortable with their devices and platforms. Email is for longer messages and attachments. Texts are for short, social messages that get to the recipient anywhere. IM is for when you’re at your desktop computer and want to chat with friends. Social Network “walls” are for public discourse among interconnected groups. Neither article even mentioned newcomers like StumbleUpon and other wacky tools that have reshaped the way I communicate.
Which begs the question – how do online marketers adapt their messages to match the medium?