Unplanned Obsolescence

Is email becoming obsolete? Yet another tech article raised the issue recently and this time it struck a chord with me, as I've been trying to position email, blogs, Facebook and Twitter in my mind. One of my friends is is always on the cutting edge of web trends and has been prodding me to get connected via each. Well, I finally did and now am trying to figure out what to do with them. I've now staked a claim to my own name in multiple parts of cyberspace, but what's next?

This post isn't intended to be a definitive guide to any of these mediums, but more of a notepad as I (publicly) sort out my thoughts. It may have some value to others as they do the same, or explain to those who have tried to communicate with me via various methods why they haven't received instantaneous responses. If neither of those is of interest to you, like any post, feel free to stop reading and move on at any time. OK, now you've been warned!

Email of course is the no brainer of the bunch. Maybe because its what I understand best, but nothing seems to be better at one-to-one asynchronous communications of non trivial size or substance, for either personal or professional communication. It does have its limitations such as threading long conversations.

Blogging is good at one-to-many asynchronous communication. I originally started using it as a replacement for the "group emails" that I might occasionally have sent out on various topics. The RSS syndication and ability to subscribe (or not) provides a level of control for the reader. As a public medium, I'm always careful not to "over share", particularly in respecting the privacy of my family members.

Facebook's semi-public implementation of many-to-many conversation, both asynchronous, threaded and random - seemingly all at once - hasn't quite "clicked" for me yet. It has elements of blogging, with it's own feed reader in the form of a Wall and the ability to comment on posts. Facebook as a whole seems to invite a lot of "over sharing" on personal topics and relationships, which is probably what makes it addictive for many people.

Twitter I'm the most lost on. It seems to be some cross of IM and SMS messaging, but (mostly) sent out into a public void. I know it has ways to tag tweets for certain users, but it seems to be a really restrictive melding of Facebook and blogging.

The bottom line that while there may be overlap and crossover between the various communications channels, there is no right or wrong answer. Just choices and preferences. The irony is that all of them have ways to be alerted via email when one is updated. That tells me email probably won't be obsolete any time soon. So don't be surprised if that's how I continue to respond!