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All you need is e-mail, e-mail. E-mail is all you need.

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Re: All you need is e-mail, e-mail. E-mail is all you need.

#21

Post by gklitt »

verganileonardo wrote: post #3

Email is OK as a communication tool. But companies use it as a task/to-do list and to work together on tasks. Email is terrible to achieve this. You will end up with lots of emails and multiple versions of the same documents... That is why I wish someone fix email! :)

I agree with this. The business context is really the one where email is most broken.

Tools like Basecamp and Trello do a good job with project management, but they aren't a 100% substitute for all the various functions of email. I sometimes think that a hybrid between email and a forum/bulletin board would be the best way to manage complex communication, instead of convoluted cc lists...

Re: All you need is e-mail, e-mail. E-mail is all you need.

#22

Post by TimPC »

E-mail has a culture around it that doesn't work for many tasks. It's called "inbox zero". Basically for most e-mail users they attempt to clear out their inbox to zero new messages every time they go to e-mail. This means if you want to do things that require thought over a period of time you'll almost always have someone using e-mail the wrong way for the task.

Re: All you need is e-mail, e-mail. E-mail is all you need.

#23

Post by Aftershock21 »

In social networks, companies are not trying to fix email or group communication because its broken. They are trying to produce users for their specific applications. If they use Email as a substrate for communication, they have no user. They end up being just a software vendor.

Re: All you need is e-mail, e-mail. E-mail is all you need.

#24

Post by pfraze »

thebdmethod wrote: post #2

I am curious about anyone currently trying to build a communication tool, and their argument for why it is a better solution than email.

I started linkjs[1] so I could create an extensible inbox/social app that supports multiple services and interfaces. The idea is to build tool environments around communication, much like the environments we already have around processing (e.g. the unix shell).

Email will be one of the services the comm environment integrates, so it's more of an extension than a replacement.

1. https://github.com/pfraze/linkjs

Re: All you need is e-mail, e-mail. E-mail is all you need.

#25

Post by coderdude »

Email is not great. My biggest problem with email is that it's unreliable. There have been so many times where I'd send an email and have it never even reach its destination. I'm not talking about a legitimate message being marked as spam and tucked away in some folder, but not even delivered and my email server isn't notified of this shenanigans (I'm looking at you, mac.com and gmail.com). This is I'm sure because some server down the chain messed up somewhere.

How can you track this down? There is no way to even know if your email made it to a person's inbox (like a kind of forced "received receipt" -- I don't care if they read it yet).

Re: All you need is e-mail, e-mail. E-mail is all you need.

#26

Post by mbesto »

I've thought about writing this post so many times.

E-mail is not broken, but we'll continually try to convince ourselves that our inabilities to be collaborative and communicate properly is because we're not given the right medium to do so. This is bullshit. People who are terrible at communication will continue to be terrible at communication regardless of what tool they use.

The hammer isn't broken, the carpenter is. Fix the carpenter.

EDIT: I should add - I see many tools that try to replace e-mail aren't largely trying to fix the problems with communication, but rather they are trying to assign accountability. This is great for bosses (or "controllers"), but not necessarily great for everyone. I've simplified this too much and could go into way more detail if I had the time.

Re: All you need is e-mail, e-mail. E-mail is all you need.

#27

Post by hollerith »

unimpressive wrote: post #12

It helps to remember that the first social networks (See: Usenet) were built out of email. EDIT: All email needs is the ability to display information like the web can. Properly formatted and threaded.

in what sense was Usenet built out of email? only thing that comes to mind is re-using some of the syntax of RFC 822.

Re: All you need is e-mail, e-mail. E-mail is all you need.

#28

Post by ChrisArchitect »

yeah yeah,email is the original great killer app of the internet. But as far as collaboration, it is full of problems and for the average user just causes problems and confusion and makes people bend over backwards to try and keep up. All the new developments are about taking it to a new level...beyond the original idea. Meaning less silos, easier many-to-many and one-to-many etc...

Re: All you need is e-mail, e-mail. E-mail is all you need.

#29

Post by recoiledsnake »

hollerith wrote: post #27
unimpressive wrote: post #12

It helps to remember that the first social networks (See: Usenet) were built out of email. EDIT: All email needs is the ability to display information like the web can. Properly formatted and threaded.

in what sense was Usenet built out of email? only thing that comes to mind is re-using some of the syntax of RFC 822.

I think it was more at a conceptual level rather than technical. It's like sending a e-mail to a public mailing list that anyone can view, join or reply to.
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