The world of communications has been undergoing drastic changes in the last decade.
Instant messages. Tweets. Direct Messages. Notifications. Postings on your wall*. Texts. Comments.
Diggs. Pins. Pluses. Reddits. Likes. Recommends. such del,icio.us.ness.
But with us still is the lowly Inbox, bastion and lord-fatherer of direct messaging and spam, the catch-all and ever-over-flowing message box for all these new social services. “Do this, have you seen, where are you, how are you, can you get back to me, internal only, high priority, end of day, please join the call we’ve started without you.”
All our devices bend over backward to serve this lowest common denominator. If you need me, the Inbox is the place to find me. It really hasn’t changed much in the last decade. To, CC, BCC. Re, Fwd. Reply. Reply all. Grandma gets it and the eight year old can leverage it.
Why hasn’t email changed? Is it atomic? Can it go away? It’s Pavlov’s Bell, calling us to nibble our way through the day. It’s the central communications of the business user; the Knowledge Base, address-book, file system and calendar; the bane of IT and the one toolset users truly learn in depth. Well, that and Excel.
Whither email? Here today, tomorrow and next week. Wither? Never.
*Honestly, I tried Facebook for fifteen minutes and found it incomprehensible. But in those fifteen minutes I did receive friend invites from acquaintances of acquaintances and, well, my time is better used than that.
Funny and true. Maybe we could do something? I sure wish people would use the features of the lowly inbox a lot better than they do today.