[Sigia-l] Is email dead, too?

[Ziya Oz]

Frank Shepard:

> Using the mail service on Myspace, for instance, is experientially different
> from using regular email.

No doubt. As I indicated before, there are enhancements to email that some
platforms provide. Problem is, these are not 'universal'. If you're not a
member of a walled-garden like Facebook, say, then you're not a beneficiary
of any of its enhanced functionalities. Email acts as the lingua franca on
the internets, and as such will continue to have certain short comings.

> This is because a person's profile offers many things that his or her
> friends might write about: new pictures, new comments, new friends,
> new  blog, new music, updated biography, new people, etc. Just going
> to the site and viewing a friend's profile can create the urge to send
> a message -- an urge that you might not have otherwise.

Yes, the amount of 'knowledge' that can be derived from user profiles and
contextual interactions is vast. As it is, it's vastly under-utilized as
well.

> So, I think that these limitations actually promote communication (however
> trivial it may be).

Right. The "I'm eating my cereal right now" kind of messaging, in general,
doesn't have to be universal obviously. Though it's hard for me to foresee
social network messaging not becoming 'universal' with an open ID/exchange
platform across services.

----
Ziya

Design is the art of not inventing.