An article this month in the Wall Street Journal, “Why Email No Longer Rules...” has stirred controversy.
“Email has had a good run as king of communications. But its reign is over.”
The author, Jessica Vascellaro, argues that just-in-time communication, such as Twitter, Facebook, and the upcoming Google Wave offer a constant stream of information. Conversely, email is outdated. It reflects how we used to use the Internet. Log on, do what we need, log off.
Email use is slowing, but it is still by far the dominate communications vehicle in business. Other services are increasing dramatically, but for now, they are not the dominate channel.
Eventually, ideally, we will choose the best tool for the right task, as real-time communication is more widely adopted in business.
The challenge will be managing a 24/7 information flow.
What do you think? Does email work well for you for your business communication?
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I think saying email is dead is jumping the gun a bit. Lots of people are not on Twitter, Facebook, etc., and you can’t send attachments via any other method that beats email. For a writer, email is still the main way to contact editors and send in assignments, but I do use LinkedIn and Twitter to converse with and keep tabs on people in the business. Thanks for pointing out this article.
I read this post on the same day as reading http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/10/30/6-reasons-why-you-need-to-consider-email-is-a-communication-strategy-on-your-blog/ where it was declared that “email is back”.
I can’t cope without email, but I’m happy to embrace social media as well.
If e-mail represents a full-bore erosion of formal writing (removal of case sensistivity, punctuation etc.) then social media like Facebook and Twitter are indeed the death knell. I refuse to join either Facebook or Twitter for a host of reasons and the last thing I want to read in a business context (or otherwise) is someone’s spontaneous and/or first impression. I think it’s telling we now regard inadequately distilled snippets of thought as the default mode of communication