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Email Comments, Questions and Miscellaneous Share your opinion of the email service you're using. Post general email questions and discussions that don't fit elsewhere. |
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29 Aug 2013, 03:55 PM | #1 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Aug 2009
Posts: 136
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Is personal email dead?
In our family and social circle we have noticed a gradual but clear reduction of personal email activity, especially over the last year.
With the advent of free sms packages as well as phone data becoming very affordable if not cheap for using social media (bloody facebook!) and instant message services, we see our friends and relatives leave email. I know our personal email boxes are decreasingly being used, and we hardly ever send pictures through our mailbox any more mainly because we shoot raw and email not being set-up to be great at sending loads of +10mb shots and us being lazy to convert them to jpg. But friends not shooting in raw hardly ever send any pictures by email any more either, they post them on social media for all or select to see. We know many people who check their personal mailbox only once a week while in the past it would have been daily or even more frequent. It's come to the point where if we want to organise something among friends for tonight, we won't use email because many won't see the email. We'll use sms in our case, many use social media. We have "lost out" on a couple of occasions because invites were sent through social media and not by email/sms/phone. We've been called a number of times in the evening with friends asking "do we wait for you, are you coming" and we saying "we didn't get the info cause we're not on social media, send us an sms or call us next time". Despite the increasing strain, so far we've managed to refuse and stay off the social media. Are we bound to gradually leaving email behind in order to stay in touch with our broader circle because everyone else does it and no longer use regular email? Is personal email dead/dying? Sort of be a sheep to stay with the herd and have uncle sam herd us or else risk being rather isolated? Really interested in your experiences and thoughts! |
29 Aug 2013, 04:40 PM | #2 |
The "e" in e-mail
Join Date: Aug 2002
Posts: 2,186
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Is postal mail dead? Are package services dead? Are paper based books dead? Are blogs dead? Is Facebook dead?
Communication patterns shift, sure. You go where your contacts are. EMail, Social Media, SMS, Messenger, whatever. But that shift doesn't make other forms obsolete or "dead" as you put it. Instead, we use a wider array of communication techniques to suit out message and audience. There are lots of places where e-mail is the best medium. Others where it is not. Email isn't the most instant technique anymore. It doesn't punch into people's lives for instant attention; other tools have taken that place. But writing something heartfelt, thoughtful or personal? Transferring instructions or reference material? Hard to do that in 160 characters or on a wall. E-mail is only dead to people who believe in oversimplified short messages. You know, like the message "E-mail is dead." |
29 Aug 2013, 05:53 PM | #3 |
Master of the @
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Denmark
Posts: 1,302
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I agree with kaptitsky on most points. Email never was and never will be suitable for the same "instant messaging" type messages that Facebook etc. handle so well. It was only (mis)used for that purpose until better solutions came along.
I'm actually glad Facebook came along, because it took a load of my email inbox, which is now reserved for mailing lists, personal letters, business communication (invoices, bills, itineraries, etc.), instead of being bombarded with massive picture emails, links to youtube videos, and whatnot. In other words, all the stuff that people now put on Facebook instead, where I can peruse it at will. Come to think of it, Facebook is one of the best spam filters I've ever had the pleasure of using. And it's free! |
29 Aug 2013, 09:04 PM | #4 |
Cornerstone of the Community
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: Rupert, WV
Posts: 882
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29 Aug 2013, 09:08 PM | #5 |
The "e" in e-mail
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Macao
Posts: 2,157
Representative of:
tls-mail.com |
email is still the No.1 for business communications.
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29 Aug 2013, 09:29 PM | #6 |
Cornerstone of the Community
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: Rupert, WV
Posts: 882
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I run a private forum, using FluxBB forum software, and it doesn't have any kind of PM features by default. A mod can be added in to have that, but I haven't added, and have no desire to add, such a feature. One of the members complained about the lack of such a thing, and I replied that that is what email is for..
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29 Aug 2013, 10:30 PM | #7 |
Master of the @
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Denmark
Posts: 1,302
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True, but that's not a viable solution if the forum software doesn't allow users to see other users' email addresses in the first place.
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30 Aug 2013, 12:08 AM | #8 |
Cornerstone of the Community
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: Rupert, WV
Posts: 882
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I have that forum configured so that members use a form that will email the intended recipient. That recipient can reply to that email, as the 'reply-to' address is the email address of the sender, and the sender will then know the email address of whomever he/she form-mailed. This is all made clear to the user before the form is even loaded, and is also stated in the original email sent (basically: don't use this form or reply to an email sent from it if you don't want your email address known to each other).
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30 Aug 2013, 02:10 AM | #9 |
The "e" in e-mail
Join Date: Apr 2011
Location: Manchester UK
Posts: 2,616
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30 Aug 2013, 03:16 AM | #10 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Pennsylvania, U.S.A.
Posts: 127
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For personal communication, yes, e-mail is dead. It's been effectively replaced by Facebook, Google Plus, Google Plus Hangouts, Skype, instant messengers, etc. For business communication and newsletters and such though, e-mail is still king.
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30 Aug 2013, 03:57 AM | #11 |
Cornerstone of the Community
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: Darlington, UK
Posts: 938
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No it's not. A lot of my friends receive and send email on their moblle phones. Therefore is sms now dead (or redundant)?
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30 Aug 2013, 04:45 AM | #12 |
Cornerstone of the Community
Join Date: Jul 2011
Posts: 713
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Email is a long way from dead, but it is at least middle-aged.
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30 Aug 2013, 07:55 AM | #13 | |
The "e" in e-mail
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: The Netherlands
Posts: 2,908
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Quote:
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30 Aug 2013, 09:55 AM | #14 | |
Essential Contributor
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: The Netherlands
Posts: 388
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Quote:
Facebook also has a large group of active users here.....and before facebook was huge...Orkut was the way to go;-) But these days are over...nowadays itīs only FB. Dutchie. PS: do some people still use Hyves in the Netherlands?? I donīt use that anymore....since at least 1,5 years or so. |
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30 Aug 2013, 04:37 PM | #15 | |
The "e" in e-mail
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: The Netherlands
Posts: 2,908
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Quote:
Last edited by Berenburger : 31 Aug 2013 at 06:31 AM. |
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