I'm not the only one suggesting that email blows. Mark Hall joins the chorus shouting that "email is a slum" (Doc Searls).

Mark Hall

[from The End of E-mail - Computerworld]

So-called realists out there will dismiss these lamentations by saying that despite all of its problems, PC e-mail is too popular to be abandoned. Perhaps. But those old enough to remember Usenet know that even a good, useful communications tool can be abandoned once it becomes overrun by hucksters, pornographers and other pond scum floating around the Internet. Usenet is still out there, but its popularity is near zero.

OK then, the realists will say, what's going to replace e-mail? After all, technology needs to be replaced with another technology. Agreed.

In the case of the Selectric, it took a combination of keyboards, monitors, printers, storage media and, of course, the PC motherboard to supplant those elegant machines. And that's what I predict will happen with PC-based e-mail.

I believe a mix of new tools will emerge around handheld devices like the Palm, the BlackBerry and your smart cell phone. These products are becoming more powerful, making it possible to do more than just send and receive messages. They're adding crisper displays and better input capabilities, whether with bigger onboard keyboards or external ones.

Also, with these devices, there's no underlying monopoly like Windows that sociopathic programmers can write viruses for. Spam isn't a big problem for today's handheld users. And by the time PC e-mail is jettisoned in the next few years, vendor-embraced antispam standards and legal action against spammers will make it a nonissue.

Instant messaging is another technology that could help move PC e-mail into the dustbin of history. It's hard to spoof an IM user because incoming messages by definition come from someone on your whitelist. And tracking and management tools exist to protect your company and employees from intellectual property theft, harassment and dangerous attachments.

Sure, there's no perfect replacement for PC e-mail. But there wasn't one for IBM's Selectric, either. It had the greatest keyboard ever, one the PC industry hasn't come close to replicating in a quarter century. But somehow, we've managed to get by, just as we will when PC e-mail disappears.

Like I asked at the recent Supernova conference, when was the last time you sent a telegram, or used a mud tablet? All sorts of once-dominant communication media have fallen by the wayside, just as soon as something better has come along. I agree with Mark, that it is likely to be something based on instant messaging, where the whitelist is the norm, and presence underlies everything.

Of course, many do not agree.

Matt Blumberg

[from OnlyOnce: The Rumors of Email's Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated] The writer talks about how email will die soon because there are too many issues with viruses, spam, IT management costs, and employment practices. The writer says email is close to having a bigger downside than upside, and that email will go the way of the typewriter or the floppy disk drive.

I say that this is a writer who has a bad IT department or a bad email service, a stunning lack of faith in technology's ability to overcome adversity, and perhaps a misunderstanding of basic economic productivity.

Email is alive and well... [and later, he asserts] The email industry will not allow itself go the way of the typewriter (by the way, you will note, there was never really a "typewriter industry" the way that email has turned into its own sector). There are simply too many companies, with too much at stake, with too much capital to invest and too much reward to be gained, to permit obsolesence.

I left out some of Matt's more compelling arguments -- like email's central role in today's business context, and spam filters are getting better everyday -- but I just had to poke at this one, that the email industry can somehow stop block obsolescence by wishing it so. And yes, there was a "typewriter industry" that was dominated by companies like IBM and Royal, and now most of those companies have gone away or turned their attention to other things.

Remington sold 100,000 typewriters before 1900, at a average price of around $100, which was incredibly expensive. "During the 1920s and 1930s, the big four front strike typewriter companies--Underwood, Royal, Remington and Smith-Corona--accounted for 80% of the dollar value of typewriters sold in the US" (see Early Office Museum) and those companies, along with IBM and others, made the transition to electricity in the 60's, but not the transition to computers. However, most would have thought that typewriters would be with us forever. They were on nearly every secretary's desk in the early '80s, for example.

Most importantly, despite being mission critical, ubiquitous, and familiar to all, they are gone and the companies involved could do nothing to stop the end of their reign. Nothing.