Why Email Isn't Dead • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Email Isn't Dead

#11

Post by joshklein » Fri, Aug 06, 2010, 5:43 PM UTC

retube wrote: post #10

joshklein wrote: post #8

I'm not sure who the "many" people the author refers to who think Twitter will replace email, but they are certainly being hyperbolic. I imagine what they really mean to say is that some sort of social identity will replace email as our manifestation of self online. That is to say, we used to default to email as the way we ran our Communications (big "C") as individuals. "How can I find you online?" Oh, here's my ema…

"Once I give out my email address, I can never take it back, and everyone gets the same priority ("unread") whether you are my mother or a salesman." This is true. But you don't have to give out your social network profile for anyone - requested or otherwise - to look you up, message you and potentially find out a whole bunch of stuff about you. (E.g today I found out - accidently, I was browsing around - that an ex-…

Yeah, but this is on the user. Things like my birthday and address aren't available to everyone, just enough information to identity me from other people with the same name.

As privacy controls normalize across less sophisticated users, I imagine more people will behave like us geeks. Or not - plenty of average Joe's still sort through 500 spam email every day by hand.

Re: Why Email Isn't Dead

#12

Post by aarp » Fri, Aug 06, 2010, 5:43 PM UTC

Yes, email isn't dead, neither is ice cream, shoes, reading, haircuts, breathing, christmas, weather, cups, the alphabet, kleenex, video games, sunglasses, intercourse, barrels, pigeons, onramps, krazy glue, pennies, and so forth....

how about a more important question, maybe one with a less obvious answer, like: is hacker news dead?

Re: Why Email Isn't Dead

#13

Post by jrockway » Fri, Aug 06, 2010, 5:54 PM UTC

aarp wrote: post #12

Yes, email isn't dead, neither is ice cream, shoes, reading, haircuts, breathing, christmas, weather, cups, the alphabet, kleenex, video games, sunglasses, intercourse, barrels, pigeons, onramps, krazy glue, pennies, and so forth.... how about a more important question, maybe one with a less obvious answer, like: is hacker news dead?

Yes, it's dead. You can officially stop checking in now.

Re: Why Email Isn't Dead

#14

Post by petercooper » Fri, Aug 06, 2010, 6:02 PM UTC

Anyone else notice all the fields on the comment form are prepopulated on that page with a guy called "Brian Armstrong"? I didn't put them there and this isn't a shared browser.. WordPress vulnerability?

Re: Why Email Isn't Dead

#15

Post by jsdalton » Fri, Aug 06, 2010, 6:13 PM UTC

Hmm, I'm not trying to be a jerk or anything, but this is a pretty lame article. It's more like a thinly veiled advertisement disguised as a thought-provoking content piece:

"People say email is dead. No, it's not! In fact, we've got this awesome email newsletter that's just for startup founders, and it's doing super awesome. Long live email!"

Gee that's...convenient.

Obviously email is not dead. But what about email newsletters? People actually still read these?

Apparently they do, since StartupDigest seems to have a successful model built around this, as do a few others. Why/how is it successful? Is the format truly superior to a blog? Is there a reason why email newsletter ONLY is superior to blog + email newsletter (+ RSS + Twitter + Facebook + etc.)?

These are questions which I'd have been interested in hearing the author's perspective on, but this article is nothing more than a bit of hype in response to another bit of hype.

Re: Why Email Isn't Dead

#16

Post by aarp » Fri, Aug 06, 2010, 6:21 PM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #13

aarp wrote: post #12

Yes, email isn't dead, neither is ice cream, shoes, reading, haircuts, breathing, christmas, weather, cups, the alphabet, kleenex, video games, sunglasses, intercourse, barrels, pigeons, onramps, krazy glue, pennies, and so forth.... how about a more important question, maybe one with a less obvious answer, like: is hacker news dead?

Yes, it's dead. You can officially stop checking in now.

in all seriousness, the articles posted on hn are typically interesting or at least well thought-out. but this one is just stupid. it doesn't make one think "well gee, IS email dead?" instead, one asks "what the fuck is wrong with hn?"

Re: Why Email Isn't Dead

#17

Post by Cmccann7 » Fri, Aug 06, 2010, 6:58 PM UTC

jsdalton wrote: post #15

Hmm, I'm not trying to be a jerk or anything, but this is a pretty lame article. It's more like a thinly veiled advertisement disguised as a thought-provoking content piece: "People say email is dead. No, it's not! In fact, we've got this awesome email newsletter that's just for startup founders, and it's doing super awesome. Long live email!" Gee that's...convenient. Obviously email is not dead. But what about email…

Sorry if the post made you feel that way. I wrote it up after the quick discussion I had with Tyler.

Will definitley expand further upon this in the future and address the questions you have on email.

Re: Why Email Isn't Dead

#18

Post by Cmccann7 » Fri, Aug 06, 2010, 6:59 PM UTC

petercooper wrote: post #14

Anyone else notice all the fields on the comment form are prepopulated on that page with a guy called "Brian Armstrong"? I didn't put them there and this isn't a shared browser.. WordPress vulnerability?

Thanks for pointing this out, it's showing up on my phone too. Will look into it

Re: Why Email Isn't Dead

#19

Post by jpwagner » Fri, Aug 06, 2010, 7:41 PM UTC

retube wrote: post #9

westbywest wrote: post #7

I'm still waiting for the foretold deaths of print, vinyl LPs, and CDs. Somehow, I believe print will manage to outlive all of these.

its' tempting to think "wow, email is ancient, it's been around for 40-odd years surely web 2.0 etc will supercede it". And then I remember the telephone, which 120 years later is still going strong.

depends how you define the invention in question or even "dead".

with voip and mobile phones are we taking about the same invention? because talking-to-other-people will likely never die. are you calling that the "telephone".

vinyl LP's are not "dead" as in non-existent, 0% adoption, etc, but they are a lot less prevalent than they used to be. cd's too.

what if electronic ink supersedes regular ink in newspapers? is it still "print".

inventions evolve they don't die.

Re: Why Email Isn't Dead

#20

Post by petercooper » Fri, Aug 06, 2010, 8:11 PM UTC

Cmccann7 wrote: post #18

petercooper wrote: post #14

Anyone else notice all the fields on the comment form are prepopulated on that page with a guy called "Brian Armstrong"? I didn't put them there and this isn't a shared browser.. WordPress vulnerability?

Thanks for pointing this out, it's showing up on my phone too. Will look into it

I should have noted that I was using an iPad. On Safari on the desktop I'm not seeing the issue. Very odd!