In my JOMC 240 class, we are constantly reminded that we live in an age of disruption. Disruption is a part of history that has closed doors on 'old' forms of media and communication, while opening doors for new ones. But in today's world, disruption happens more frequently than ever. Take newspapers, Myspace, Vine, and even FlappyBird. But after my typical Wednesday of cell-phoneless work for five hours, I checked my phone to see EIGHTEEN EMAILS. And my only thought, why hasn't Email been disrupted yet?
Although Email is still relatively new in comparison with the newspaper and television, it seems that it has stuck around for far too long. I've known about the concept of Email since I learned about computers for the first time, and the communication tool hasn't seemed to change very much since then. One would think that texting would've endangered email, or social media messaging, or anything... come on.
But nope, it's still around. Annoying, inconvenient, and constantly prodding with me every buzz of my phone that comes with a new message. And for me, the worst part of Email is having access to it on my phone. As I've switched to mobile, I like to be able to read my email, but I pretty much refuse to respond to a message until I am on my lap top. So I'm constantly reminded of the overload of email messages that I need to respond to, without being able to do anything about them.
After searching for some support on my frustration, I found an article from HootSuite with a title that seemed to fit my attitude quite perfectly- "You Can't Kill Email, So Here's How to Keep it From Killing You." It was written with little tips for frequent Emailers to "take back their inbox." Less interested in the advice, I found some interesting facts about why Email may be important and refuses to die.
To begin, it interestingly claims that the idea of Email came before the idea of the Internet itself. Then it goes on to suggest that the power behind Email today comes from the fact that it is secure, can be searchable, has its own infrastructure, and allows for one-to-one communication. All of these made for good points of why Email is still alive and well, but I surely think that something has to change with the system soon. Perhaps instead of letting it become such a nuisance that we end up "killing it," we could make the future of Email awesome. And I found a Mashable article that claims awesome Email is a plausible future.
Mashable predicts that a wind of change is upon the "Internet's most boring application." After gathering research from developers, they've made four major predictions about what the future holds for Email - unfortunately it will still be alive and kickin', but with these changes, I might be able to handle it.
1. Third-Party Applications: Third-Party Applications will rise that allow us to use our same email systems with new tools, in order to specialize our needs and wants. So far, most email systems are restrictive in welcoming third-party applications, but Mashable strongly argues that this will have to change, making our Email easier to use and customize according to necessity.
2. Smarter Input, History, and Management: Another common prediction for all communication technology- expect robots to be delivering your messages aloud, and Siri to be typing up your responses.
3. Personalization: Email systems and the messages themselves will incorporate more "user personality." While it may work for the interface of the email system, I do not think that having a user profile will really enhance my Email experience... Save it for social media. However, Mashable's prediction of pre-built templates for messages, differing with who you are communicating with, sound pretty cool.
4. Larger user growth through mobile: ......duh
So, although I may have a love/hate relationship with my Email (mostly hate), it's not going anywhere. In fact, its future seems bright and perhaps even bearable.
No comments:
Post a Comment