The end of e-mail?
Hardly anyone would disagree that e-mail is the killer app. But for Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of the world's biggest social network, it's a dying means of communication.
She bases that assertion on the behaviour of the nearly 500 million souls who gather on Facebook.
Speaking at the Neilsen Consumer 360 conference in Las Vegas, Ms Sandberg claims: "If you want to know what you'll be doing tomorrow, look at what teens are doing today."
Ms Sandberg, who you can watch on YouTube, claims that only 11% of teens use e-mail, preferring text messaging and social networks.
Even though 90% of e-mail may be spam or other useless twaddle, it is hard to believe it is nearing its sell-by date.
A report by the Radicati Group says that e-mail is still on the rise and projects that e-mail accounts will increase from 2.9 billion today to over 3.8 billion by 2014.
At the same time, social networking is predicted to climb from over 2.1 billion accounts in 2010 to over 3.6 billion by 2014.
Do you agree that platforms like Twitter and Facebook are sounding the death knell for e-mail? And if it were to die off, would you miss it?
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~12~RS~)
Comments
I don't agree that email will die out. The reason teens use social networks and text to communicate is that their messages are short and generally simple (e.g. status updates).
Once they reach working age, the best way to communicate complex written information to a large group of people is email. Social networks, apart from being too informal for the workplace, are generally not fully featured enough for the complexity of communication needed in a work environment.
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At the risk of sounding like a luddite, I don't see the end of email anytime soon. I agree that Facebook is the defacto standard in communication between friends and groups of friends but it cannot work for business to business communications of the kind that "grown ups" need to do to earn a crust.
Facebook is here to stay. Many decry it for a multitude of reasons best read elsewhere but it is a global success story.
Email is a primary communication mechanism for business.
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There are matters which are not suitable for public disseminjation on social networking sites and too large or complex for text or twitter, so email is likely to survive for inter-personal communications.
Email use in business, commerce and social welfare is likely to continue to increase as society requires an improvement on snailmail which is progressively decreasing.
I could not manage without email.
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I certainly hope not. It is the hype propagated by this type of article promoting these commercialised social networking websites that will kill email, not the sites themselves.
Facebook, Twitter, etc are websites running on HTTP. Email is a different set of protocols. Furthermore, these free open standard protocols available for anyone to use. The new breed of social networking sites aren't.
It is the open standard nature the HTTP protocol that allow social networking sites to exist.
Anyone can have complete control of their mail server setup because of this. I certainly do not want all my business email under the control of something like Facebook.
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I think Ms. Sandberg is trying to talk up the prospects for Facebook. While I am on Facebook I very rarely use it to actually communicate with anyone, that's what email is for and I can't see any likelihood that social networking will replace more than a small proportion of email traffic. Facebook, on the other hand, will surely be replaced by something else after a few years of domination, hence the need for Ms. Sandberg to try to protect her job.
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Social networks - especially Facebook - have taken the social communication out of email. In my generation, there is virtually no onw left whom I'd send a social email to. Why? Because I know they are on Facebook a lot, but I don't know how often they check hotmail / gmail / yahoo. I can see when they last did something on Facebook on their mini-feed, so I know when I'm being ignored rather than forgotten. And Facebook is where people exchange "friend"ly communication.
Twitter? Too public. Not enough buy-in - there's many lurkers, not many posters, and it's unreliable, very very spammy, and essentially junk.
But email will stay around for anything serious. I do not want to interact with companies or colleagues on Facebook. I don't want amazon to tell me via Facebook that something has been shipped.
Some people say Google Wave will kill email, but they're deluded. Email will only go the way of the fax if something comes along that is downwards compatible with it. Google Wave is not. Facebook sends its users email notifications, but does not integrate email and its own message system.
Email is still too useful to go.
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Facebook and Twitter will burn out first.
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I don't see social networking killing email any more than email killed the fax machine. Or any more than SMS killed email.
As others have stated, email relies on open protocols, rather than the (relatively) closed Facebook or Twitter models. This is also the reason that Apple's FaceTime is unlikely to make video calling the norm - it's a restrictive closed system, which leaves billions of potential users locked out.
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Communication implies content. As a very simple analogy,
social network sites = drinks party
email = two-person office meeting.
Then there's the 'horses for courses' argument. Just as email impacted the volumes of snail-mail (and to some extent the use of the telephone), by a redistribution of traffic depending on immediacy and security factors, social networking (and texting) has removed some of traffic from other routes. I don't see document couriers, the RM, and the voice part of Telcos having massive reductions in traffic, more that their growth is slow or slightly negative.
It's a marketing principle that it is easier to acquire share in a rising market - the competition stays static or increases more slowly than the overall market. In Comms, each new channel tends to work this way.
So to me, Ms Sandberg's line sounds slightly desperate. I read into it that the former explosive growth has plateaued, and that we are seeing a maturing business sphere for social networking. That needs a different business model; can those companies change their spots?
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"Ms Sandberg ... claims that only 11% of teens use e-mail, preferring text messaging and social networks."
Ms Sandberg fails to account for the fact that what teens communicate about is often quite different from what adults communicate about.
I suspect the medium of communication is primarily reflecting *that* rather than the age group itself.
After all, a typical teen activity like planning a night out on Friday is easier on a social network where messages don't need to be in-depth, and a list of friends is on hand. Whereas giving feedback to a business client - a typically more adult activity - is more suited to email.
The shrinking usage of email and web forums among teens may also have some connection with the shorter attention span of that age group, and may, umm.... err....... sorry, what was I saying.....?
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You can't predict the death of email based on a demographic of non-users. Unless companies allow social networking sites to be open all day, like email systems, it will not replace email for those who work. Everyone I know has a work email, and we communicate by day using this, not facebook, etc.
While my outlook is up all day on my screen, email will always trump social networking sites.
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Email is still the only serious way of internet communication,have you really looked at the rubbish people place on their facebook site?mostly game playing and teenage tripe in general.
Email will still be around when this generation of teens and facebook are no longer
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I cannot agree with this. Firstly most social networks use a proprietary format, and most cannot communicate with each other. So to talk to one person on Facebook I have to use Facebook, Bebo to Bebo, Twitter to Twitter etc.
Email, however, uses a defined and open standards that have been around a long time. So it does not matter if I use Outlook, KMail, Thunderbird, web based, hotmail, yahoo, some tiny ISP, the list goes on.... We can all communicate.
The failure to realise this is part of the reason that Instant Messaging is waning. By the time the various companies started to communicate, it was too late.
So email is here for a while. Some projects are trying to open up the social networking scene, but until its open, I cannot see it taking over as the primary communication method for business.
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Kids? What do they know.
I cant believe we are throwing away such an important part of our culture..on a mere fad! I grew up around the traditional and much loved email, - its become an essential part of the very fabric of our communities. It annoys me that so much has been eroded that is traditional and good in our British culture, we should say NO to this new threat...and fight tooth and nail to preserve this great and noble institution for the sake of future generations !
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As others have mentioned, Facebook and Twitter are perhaps not fit for the office environment, however a social networking site built for business might be. SharePoint (for all its faults) tried to make a start in this area. It allowed easy website expansion, photo galleries and file-sharing and version control and future versions of it (and other content management systems) might just provide that link to social networking sites.
The biggest negative is that businesses prefer other businesses to work with similar standards - if everyone was on a business-built social networking site, all the better, but what are the chances of that? Currently email offers simple standards that most people are now familiar with (sending text, images and other attachments). When we deviate even from these simple standards think how noticable it is. I have a friend who works for an organisation which doesn't accept attachments - how inconvenient is that! If different businesses were using different social networking sites supposedly built for them, there would be even less compatibility.
The web was envisaged with minimal dependancy on devices and personal standards - email, for that time being, continues to uphold that concept.
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I only use email and skype.
I really hope that these social networking sites fold and are totally absolved! Realistically though, I know that this will not happen and things can only get worse with these social net working sites.
Those who benefit from these sites are those who are reaping the profits in and through them, by either advertising or illegal and yet even more so immoral means. 40% of those who use facebook and other sites are of non identity (made up, false) in order to gain access to young children and I may add that even adults are fooled too! (Now shouldn't that sound alarm bells ringing)
~I read an interesting and factual article recently that you should read~ http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-20004511-83.html
(There is so much more to these web sites than people realise and yet they are portrayed as just another way of communication)
We need to be cautious and find out everything and anything about these social networking sites. *Prevention is always better than the cure*
In a few years there are going to be tremendous repercussions for people who have opened their lives up for ALL to view.
Stick to email, or make some one's day and do it the old fashioned and personal way with a hand written letter. I have done this several times and each time the recipient has been touched by the sentiment and it gave them a smile on their face and in their heart. After all what did we all do before this technology took over our ability to get in touch meant something other than a one line comment! If you value a relationship with your friends, then think about their privacy, as well as your own and that of your families.
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This is a bit of a non- story, we could play statistical top trumps all day like it or not email is, was and will be the back bone of our electronic communications for a long while, how do you converse with your colleagues and employers Maggie is it facebook, twitter or email.
Sheryl might like to think lots of things but it is a dim question without some counter to her comments maybe some body from Rim of course that would be objective journalism rather than cut and paste press releases.
What next Steve Jobs telling us the PC is dead or bill gates on how the I-series of devices is a passing fad.
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A year ago you were telling us that Facebook was "so over". I expect this story to be as equally prophetic.
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I subscribe to quite a number of mailing lists related to my field of work, and can't imagine life without gmail, which let's you handle and organise large volumes of messages with ease.
In reply to 6., I think Google Wave will at least notify you by email (when a wave is updated). Where you have more than two people involved, I would definitely recommend giving it a try - it's like using a web-based word processor, where you invite others to insert replies or edits, which you can follow in realtime.
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This is a rather silly supposition, the adult world uses email. I would agree that some form of social networking is likely to maintain position as the mainstream for simple communications. To suggest that the current crop will always assume that position is somewhat naive.
One advantage texting has among younger users is that of affordability. People with no computer or fixed line internet, use their mobile for social networks and texting. Privacy is becoming something of a buzzword these days and even the most technologically challenged are becoming aware of concerns.
Teens might be happy to conduct their online lives by social network proxy but will adults? Social networks are for the fun things. Sharing pictures, videos and little quips with friends and family. For all else, of which there is rather a lot, you pick up the phone, write a letter or use email. This wont change any time soon, just as in the 90's the cashless society was lauded. Well, where is it?
Your Ms Sandberg has rather foolishly fallen victim to hype. Not to worry, her foolish nonsense will give her something to laugh about a few years down the line. Less she be of the take yourself far too seriously persuasion. In which case when ebayers start tweeting their latest offerings, she'll declare herself correct. Which would at least give the rest of us a good laugh.
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@16 I'd like to question 'cheryl's (above) claim that 40% of all Facebook users are sexual predators. Can you site your sources? 40% seems like an alarmingly (and falsely) high figure...certainly there are sinister characters using the site for various immoral and illegal reasons but I am quite sure there aren't 200m of them.
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I don't use social networking sites. I have a phone for making phone calls, a camera for taking photographs and use email for most of my communications.
Facebook, Twitter et al have their place, but not for me.
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E-mail is the current Business mail, Twitter the postcard.
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In the real world, where people use computers for actual work as opposed to messing around, e-mail still reigns supreme. It is absolutely ideal: attachments can be added, private, secure, self managed, direct and simple. It was one of the key driving forces behind smartphones (particularly Blackberrys) and will remain the standard until something better comes along, which I can't see happening soon. Social networks are not aimed at businesses (except for advertising). Does the chairman of XYZ Ltd really want me to share my Spotify playlist and what I had for tea, whilst at the same time I try and strike a deal for £x million?
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I agree with Barryp
I could not replace email with a social networking site. It is like so many things in this over-technical world where some software designers are arrogant enough to think they can dictate the future and tell us how to live, only to come up with ever more complicated solutions that make our lives twice as intensive with no benefit whatsoever.
Email is the one and only real benefit of the internet, allowing near instantaneous communications between two peoples private space. The advantages of mail, but sped up. A perfect compliment to the phone call, in fact.
I watch the kids try and use all the other forms of networking for communication and they end up having to check through 10 or 20 incompatible systems to get their messages. But as soon as they need to do something formal or private, they are straight back to their email.
And the fact that you can choose how and where your emails are stored, and there is not a complicated privacy structure is an added bonus.
Oh for the death of social networking and its tedious overcomplicated existence!
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In reply to mark-dj comment...
I would like to say that I never mentioned nor claimed that 40% of facebook users are sexual predators, merely that they are false identities. Of which some are then manufactured to allure the young and even adults.
The figure of 40% is a valid and truthful one. If you would care to go to the link I have provided it is clearly stated on there.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-20004511-83.html
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I always use e-mail to communicate with friends online, and my teenage years aren't too far behind me. With friends I live near and see regularly I usually just talk to on the phone. This leaves my long-distance friends who I need to catch up with, and it just seems more appropriate to send an e-mail rather than a few lines in public.
I have a Facebook account, and privacy becomes more of a concern for me as its popularity grows. I now get friend requests from people I've only met once (and possibly didn't like). I accept them, because that's what you're supposed to do when you're my age, and then worry that they can see all my messages and photographs.
For me, Facebook managed to get me back in touch with some old friends, for which I'm grateful, but I e-mail them now. I can't really see the point of having an account now I've achieved this, and Mark Zuckerberg's vision of a social web really doesn't appeal to me, it sounds like nothing more than hype and marketing potential. I can see myself deleting my Facebook account by the end of the year.
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"But for Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of the world's biggest social network, it's a dying means of communication."
That's rich coming from someone whose website is barred from offices all over the world.
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"Facebook and Twitter will burn out first." (Ahmen to that).
Another asinine post from the BBC. Lazy and badly researched.
And when are you going to shut up about them, BBC?
Email was going to kill the standard letter - but we're still sending them, what 20-30 years after email became everyday?
"That's rich coming from someone whose website is barred from offices all over the world."
Including ours - after most of the computers were infected by a virus - from Facebook.
Come on Maggie, how about blogging some real news - or are you on Facebook's payroll?
I apologise for being direct, but this is getting quite ridiculous. The standard of comment from the people we the public pay (lots) is dropping by the hour.
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#29
"20-30 years after email became everyday"
What rubbish! Email has been 'everyday' for less than 10 years. I work in IT and I didn't get my own net connection till '99. Only in universities has email been used for 20-30 years and then mostly by CS students.
The difference is in the way we communicate. Facebook et al allow us to broadcast things to our friends and family in a way that is more social. Email is targeted at the recipients.
Communication in business is far more targeted, so email (or maybe its replacement - Google Wave, maybe?), I suspect, will always be used. LinkedIn, for example, isn't replacing email communication.
Email won't die out because there will always be times when you want to communicate with someone who isn't in your social network.
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Every year it is the death of 'something', only for it still to be alive and kicking, years later.
I remember texting on my first mobile phone in 1997. The U.S. were incredibly behind the game in this, and for them, texting has reached the apex it did in Europe about 4 years ago. Email is primarily a business use thing these days, I don't think teenagers will be dictating what businesses do through there usage patterns alone. Perhaps when the teenagers are older and are working, the new ideas about things will come through, but they have to better and easier to use - so far they are not.
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It seems to me the younger groups of people use these other means of communication for two reasons; to be different and mental laziness. Most teenagers hate being seen to be using or associated with wearing, drinking, listening or watching anything their parents do. Having seen some of the content of Facebook etc, I can also see that spell-check and basic grammar are seen as additional rules to be ignored and baulked against. It's a teenage condition which these days, appears to run for about thirty-five years...
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In much the same way as email failed to completely replace snail-mail, social networking will be unable to replace email completely. In fact it is unwise to expect it to, because email as a form of communication is used by different groups of people for different purposes. I think that is what this blog has not attempted to address.
Social users will most likely switch very quickly to social networking, because this technology is proving the more effective means of communication for that demographic group than email. There are also professional social networks where business people and individuals are conducting professional business. However, it will largely be businesses that will continue to use email as a messaging tool.
That said, I think that social networking will probably retain the best email features, such as being able to send attachments and some sort of privacy.
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Email is here to stay as are all our ways of communication.
I still occasionally write letters and Fax details to people
I still use the phone and listen to radio
The beauty of being human is that we have varied ways of communication, why do we need to narrow our bandwidth down to one method.
The lady is simply on a profile enhancing exerzise.
#30 - ah the arrogance of youth
I too am in IT and have been for 30 odd years
I used an early version of email & instant messaging on sperry mapper business systems in early 1983. I got my first internet email address in 1995. So 20-30 years is a valid time frame. Just because you did not get it till 1999 does not mean other more enlightened business did not have it before that.
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Anyone who has looked carefully at the Facebook track record on "privacy" will register with a pseudonym and the minimum of personal details. It mistakenly assumes that "Friends" are people you know personally - rather than just being an interesting personality in discussing some specific area of interest.
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I used to get emails from FaceBook that advised me that someone I didn't know had done something that was now public with a person I did.
But some complex nonsense at FB's end means I don't get these any more. Calm is restored.
So I'll just keep on writing and being written to, in private, emails with those who I value, all nicely archived, in and out, under my (paid for) control, and not subject to the whim of a 3rd party I have no control over.
Ta very much.
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#34. Thank you Barry.
I've been in IT for since 1979 - something lost on Rhys, I expect. Like you, I've watched all these things evolve from Minis into Micros in everyday objects. From dial-up at 300baud (if we're lucky) to into the .com boom and bust.
Anyone who understands basic Darwinian evolution would know better than to make an asinine remark such as this passing CEO of a currently trendy network.
Sites like Facebook and Twitter may prove to be fisherian runaways (like peacock feathers) driven by something other than basic natural selection. The virtual death of Bebo, Friendsreunited and others only lends credence to this idea.
All technology evolves and some will go extinct (the light that burns twice as bright burns half as long) but the ones that stand the test of time will continue.
For example, Email, HTTP and IP are all network technologies that have been around for some time - and have evolved: slowly; replacing others along the way because they were the best adapted (or most adaptable) to what was needed.
If you consider Fisherian runaway but replace a Peacock (the most usual example) with Twitter you can see the parallels. Most obvious is the point at which the bird's energy requirements to maintain its tail exceed the advantage the plumage affords (cf. Twitter's Fail Whale).
A blog reply isn't really the place to discuss this topic which is vast and does require a little bit of background on the underlying theory. It's worth investigation though - and might even make an interesting article for the BBC team.
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@26 - Cheryl
You seem to have taken that article a long way out of context. What the article actually says is;
"....*between* 20 and 40 per cent of *new* profiles on the popular social networking site *could* be bogus...."
This only applies to new profiles - not the entire population of Facebook users. The number in the article lies somewhere between 20% and 40%, and also uses the word "could" - just to make the statement even more hazy! :p The article was also written almost two years ago. If the statement above was accurate, it's something that I'd like to think that Facebook have addressed by now. The article also goes on to say;
"...[profiles could be] fictitious registrations created by spammers and malware writers to infect end users..."
Even if the article was true, it is pitched towards fake accounts created for advertising purposes and spreading viruses, rather than gaining access to childen.
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@ 26 You certainly did claim that 40% of Facebook users are sexual predators, or at least heavily insinuate it:
"40% of those who use facebook and other sites are of non identity (made up, false) in order to gain access to young children..."
Perhaps that isn't what you actually meant, but commenter 38, who put it far better than me has shown that you might want to take more care when quoting facts, figures and opinions.
You're right about letters though, I like a good letter. This has all gone a bit off-topic though...so, er, I don't actually think email is going anywhere.
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The email infrastructure could do with some changes to prevent spam, and email software ought to use encryption as standard.
But so far as asynchronous communication is concerned, Facebook is just yet another platform.
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The end of email?
No, I dont think so - but for sure email is going to have to evolve.
People in business treat email like a directive tool and blame you when you didnt read something they sent. This will lead to more people not using email and going back to using the phone.
Emails are marked urgent - this is an oxymoron - if my house is burning, I dont send the fire brigade an email - I phone them...
Email has become like a plague and drives many people mad with its volume and inability to negotiate.
Bring on the changes...
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email was supposed to replace USENET, wasn't it? I know people who still use USENET. Many people probably think the only reason to go on USENET, these days, is to swap porn and pirated software, but the people I know, go on there to talk about owning horses.
That's the point with online communication. The function is to put yourself in touch with like minded people - people who would be too remote, for you to meet under normal circumstances - and that's what it excels at.
"Facebook to become new means for exchanging tips about foal nutrition!" Yeah, right. I think you'll find that the medium is actually so much less than the message.
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@42. I don't recall email been touted as a replacement for Usenet, Dan, although my learned friend may correct me. Usenet was a direct evolution of BBS - bulletin board systems that guys like me used to run on cranky PCs (or worse!) with 1200/75 dial-in connections. Great days: not.
@41 - There is a difference: email is a written medium; telephone is a spoken one. The law treats the two very differently if you say something you don't mean (or even if you do)! Libel laws are very different to those covering slander.
The big difference between Facebook/Twitter (& their kin) and the rest of the web is simple. No one person or corporation controls or owns the web. Facebook and Twitter rely on this, but Twittering in particular could easily be destroyed in heartbeat should the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) suddenly decide to open up a protocol to micro-blog.
If micro-blogging is a useful tool, then it should be an open standard shared across the whole Internet: not in the hands of a profit-making business. Net email isn't magic, it's based on open standards over millions of servers. Same with HTTP (web); same with FTP... and so on.
I wonder if Twitter's investors have considered that - moreover, I wonder why the IETF hasn't.
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For those of us who don't want to use social networking sites as a means of communication, as they seem to feel they do not fall within any form of data protection legislation, and who fail to realise that once something is in the public domain, even if it is withdrawn, someone may have made a copy - I like email! Don't want anything to do with Twittering or Facebook. Did Bebo actually disappear?
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There seems to be a lot of confusion here about the gains and drawbacks of email and social networking sites, so I will try to cover them here or, if I witter on too long for the textbox, I will make my full comment available on our blog at http://crucialdivide.com
Email is regarded as the preferred method for business. However, as a lot of businesses require confidentiality for their communications, the underlying protocol is flawed. It's perfectly fine for use on a closed network, where point-to-point communication can be secured, but as soon as a message is sent to a 3rd party, the data is sent unencrypted over the public network. When this happens, email is typically the postal mail equivalent to sending a postcard, where the sorting office, the postman and any other random opportunist can get a clear idea of what your company is up to.
Of course, the message could be encrypted at the client, but this is currently complicated to set up and requires both sides of the conversation to be using the same encryption technology. I have been in the IT industry for many years, with many friends and colleagues in the same, and can only remember one occasion where someone has shown an interest in experimenting with it.
Other problems with email are the inadequate anti-spam solutions and it being a conduit for viruses.
RB wrote - “This is also the reason that Apple's FaceTime is unlikely to make video calling the norm - it's a restrictive closed system, which leaves billions of potential users locked out”
While proprietary systems, like social networks, are not honourable to the original ethos behind the world wide web, this does not preclude them from success, just as Skype has shown with its triumph over the open VOIP protocol, SIP, and as Facebook has shown with its increasing popularity over other open standards social systems, such as IRC (Internet Relay Chat), Usenet and Email. Most users will not see, or be interested in, the bigger picture of what is surrendered by adopting proprietary systems, or what is gained by supporting open standards. Instead they will gravitate towards those which are reliable, convenient, easy-to-use and accessible.
Social networks have their virtues and foibles too. They have been positioned for mass market, with the initial emphasis on young people (Facebook was first restricted to US universities and colleges). As such they are regarded as frivolous by middle and late adopters.
Furthermore, social network companies currently have a protectionist attitude towards their user base; users cannot communicate outward with users on any other systems, even other social networks. There is no reason for this, from a technology standpoint. Far from being “social” networks, they pen users into their “walled gardens” and alienate those who have not signed up.
Putting aside the concerns over ethics regarding user data and privacy with some social networks, their security model is quite sound, and certainly preferable to email. Communication is encrypted between the web browser client and the server using HTTPS, and the data is held centrally and not inherently transmitted over the public network. However, this good news is short-lived, as Facebook sends email notifications containing the full content of the message by default to the recipient, undermining these benefits.
Dissemination of business-related information using social networks could be a possibility. However, taking Facebook as an example, the immaturity of the tools to control where that information ends up make it too much of a risk to bear serious consideration. The problem is that Facebook's success works on a core principle - “encourage sharing everything publicly”. This is the ideal principle for a social network, but not a business network. Media interest in homes being trashed by hundreds of uninvited guests to intimate house parties, and similar stories, will probably prevent current social networks from making the jump into the corporate world, but that isn't to say there isn't a spare seat for a late arrival at the convention.
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In reply to 38...
I think I need to be quite clear 'again' that what I stated is the truth. Below is the factual statement from the website and I quote...
'There was a study in 2008 that concluded that 40 percent of all Facebook profiles are fake.' (Please, everyone read the interview.)
Also the date of this whole article was written on May 8th 2010 (at least that is the date that is appearing on my screen!) It was the actual study that was conducted in 2008. Of which I agree is out of date, but logically proves that the figures are most probably now even higher! But I will leave that for you to decide after you have read all the evidence!
The following is a direct copy of a paragraph from the article '5 Hidden dangers of facebook' article...
The potential for crime is real. According to the Internet Crime Complaint Center, victims of Internet-related crimes lost $559 million in 2009. That was up 110 percent from the previous year.
If you're not careful using Facebook, you are looking at the potential for identity theft, or possibly even something like assault, if you share information with a dangerous person you think is actually a "friend."
One British police agency recently reported that the number of crimes it has responded to in the last year involving Facebook climbed 346 percent. These are real threats.
Just to make it clear the following is my own statement:
There are going to be far more serious repercussions in the future from these social networking sites than anyone is aware of today. Time will tell.
Oh and if you fell like a little late night reading or may be a horror story at bed time, perhaps you might like to read some more 'truths'.
The following article/information was written on the 14th June 2010.
The Facebook privacy paradox...
http://www.csoonline.com/article/596685/the-facebook-privacy-paradox
(Please read)
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This article is quite instructive.
It shows you that people who are embeded in an industry such as Sheryl Sandberg here should not in fact be at the top of a company that requires people who can think beyond the world they work in. Ms Sandberg here is allowing her view of the web to be totally influenced by the company she works in.
This is the same kind of thinking that led Microsoft to loose it's pre eminent position in the world.
Of course email is not dead, it may be in about 15 years when some new form of communication we have not thought of comes in, but you can't use facebook for letters and business communications in the way taht email is used.
So I think this article shows some cracks at the top of facebook's management that show how companies do not think outside the box enough.
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I've just raised @47.'s issue with the IETF. We do need a better way to email and all the hype over Twitter and Facebook commanding/controlling huge parts of the web (which is otherwise and by definition completely non-centralised) brings this home.
If Twitter fails, and it easily can if the money men stop giving it more cash for no returns, then millions of people will suddenly be left high and dry in a heartbeat.
In a traditional business sense, Twitter is bankrupt - the only thing shoring it up are the seemingly bottomless pockets of the American venture capitalists behind it. Such men (and they are men) must have mad billions from the last boom because they clearly cannot see that Twitter currently does not have a sustainable business model.
This raises the point that we urgently need a new standard protocol for email (text) transport that works like Twitter but does not rely on a single company. Twitter is the flag-carrier for everything that the net DOESN'T stand for.
Facebook is slightly different, where I detest the arrogance of its founder and CEO, I'm happy that at least it has a viable business.
So far every centralised effort to overturn email has (or is) dying a painful death. The one notable exception is Google mail which is decentralised at source, but still run by a single corporation. This is a dangerous precedent.
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Google wave Hahaha!
Not that great!
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@Runckle. Google Wave is an collation system and will probably do about as well as Orkut (its answer to Facebook).
Twitter has a lot to worry about if the IETF (the people who make the Internet) actually come up with a distributed protocol that allows people to micro-blog. Technically, it's not that difficult - BitTorrent and Gnutella have both done similar things but are used to shift massive amounts of data.
I would certainly be in favour of such a service because it would mean that no one company held a bunch of data about me. (And yes, the irony of that statement isn't lost on me).
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Oh deary deary me... scaremongering to get headlines!
Email is not dead and if it is, what pray will it be superseded by? That text message page twitter, well twitter is a joke and anyone who thinks that this type of communication is the future is sadly mistaken as is anyone that thinks they can make any money out of it, sorry to burst your bubble but it`s true. SMS things like this are hopeless we already have SMS and the limiting 140 chars that go with it. but having a fone i could probably breathe in if i am not careful makes it hard to type a msg anyway!
I have a thing on this `ere computer called a KEYBOARD which means i can write long meandering amounts of rubbish like a real jurno.
As i refuse point blank to have a my space/twitter/whatever stupid name they come up with next account, i will not use them.
I despise registering for anything even to post on here gives me the creeps. Now another creepy corporation has my email address...Bah!
Dead my foot!
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There's a lot of truth in what she says. Businesses that use social technologies internally are finding them to be much more efficient and cheaper than traditional email and this trend is set to continue as the 'Net Generation' enters the workforce. I suspect that over the next decade, as most of the baby boomers retire and ecision start to be made by the next generation, email will decline markedly become mainly used for communcations between companies; within companies, the emerging social technology software suites will become the predominant form of communication - it's cheaper, faster and better supports multi-tasking and mass colloaboration. Many companies are piloting these technologies today and the results are very encouraging.
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You need Email to sign up for everything including most social networks. Email is like the wheel everything else is just eye candy.
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"I've just raised @47.'s issue with the IETF"
What do you mean ?
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Sometimes I do despair of the level of journalism on the BBC. This is just another stupid PR stunt from Facebook. Email will not die out in the near future and if Ms Sandberg is so confident that FB / Twitter can replace email then I look forward to her proving that Facebook do not use email internally and rely purely on FB Walls and comments.
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I don't want to cause offence, but I really don't see the point in this post.
I think we can almost all agree that communication with computers is the present and will be the future unless something else comes along, but we might still call it a computer. Who knows. Anyway, as email is a form of electronic communication, it is mostly likely to stay. Emails tend to be for long messages, sometimes with pictures and files attached. Yes it will evolve, but unless some other form of communication takes over from it (email being the "written" or "typed" form, using words), that is better than words, it will probably stay and even then there will still be people who prefer reading to listening. I doubt tasting will take off, nor smelling and touching may become more popular, but at the moment it is. Do we need a new sense? The demand for "words" will still be there.
Short messages certainly have moved away form email, but were they ever sent much via email anyway (apart from when email was the only effective means of transmitting electronic information easily). Text messages and IM (and others I'm sure) were developed and were all better suited for such messages and Facebook and other new services (including the one that shall not be named) are just the newest additions to this.
Therefore, besides the earlier years of computing (consumer computing), which offered little else, what Sheryl Sandberg appears to have observed is not the "death" of email, rather the youths change to shorter messages. If you look at text messages and IMs this has been obvious for years. I wouldn't be suprised if in some form it has been going on for centuries.
May I add that Sheryl Sandberg, judging by here position (note shouldn't judge) is naturally going to want to try and pronounce email "dead".
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Now more and more phones support email this could impact on text messaging as some types of account still charge per text. Also you cannot send attachments with text.
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It's dissapointing to see a BBC journalist jump at such an obviously commercial publicity stunt from Facebook.
As many others have said, email of some form or another is here to stay because it's an established open standard - no single company or corporation can control it, any business can set up their own mail server based on any one of many competing but standards-based products, it's become the backbone of business and its the starting point for anyone on the web too. Even the likes of Facebook are based ultimately around email - every single one of those 500 million souls on FB signed up with an email address to begin with, that unique and personal identifer that is their passport to everything else out there.
Facebook is well established too and will no doubt be around for a long time, but it serves a different purpose and facilitates a different kind of communication. Moreover Facebook, more than anyone else, have proved time and time again the dangers of sharing too much information in one place, and relying on one fallible company to protect your data - for that reason they will never be trusted by business or by grown adults generally, no matter how those same people may have used the site as teens.
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"If you want to know what you'll be doing tomorrow, look at what teens are doing today."
So the future is:
wearing hoodies
wearng our jeans around our knees
getting pregnant at 14
forgetting the Queen's english
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@54. I have no idea - I guess I must have got the wrong number. D'oh.
What I've done is raised an issue with the IETF (the people who design Internet protocols) that we have an ideal opportunity to design email's evolutionary replacement.
Twitter does one thing very well - broadcasts. I find this pointless, but it's an interesting extension of the existing mailing lists.
Twitter is bad because it's centralised - and that's not how the Internet was supposed to work - the clue is in he name. It's also bad because it's commercial exploiting things which really should be kept private - everything that we say on Twitter is broadcast to the whole world - even if we don't want it to be: as a certain female pop singer discovered recently.
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I think the assumption that social networking is limited to kids is wrong. I know plenty of Facebook users who, like me, are the wrong side of 50. The plain fact is that it is a great way of staying in touch with friends, sharing experiences and photographs. Especially old friends who now live in the next county, country or continent.
In fact, if I were in Facebook's marketing department, I'd be seriously worried by the way Facebook has become mainstream and (err) silver. Nothing is likely to put off the next generation of kids as the sight of their parents or even grand-parents using Facebook. :-)
I'm sure Facebook has seriously damaged the business model of services like Yahoo Groups, which is what people used to use for this kind of stuff. But not e-mail; that is whole different model and a whole different set of use cases. Maybe with time some of the lessons learnt in Facebook et al may lead to an e-mail killer, but there needs to be a lot more water under the bridge before that happens.
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Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo - name them and shame them - every one has a major problem potentially: the Internet is free and distributed services (based on free standards) are what drives it.
If someone where to invent a free and distributed application that did what Facebook does then the company would vanish within years or months. Personally, I don't see that happening.
Other services could suffer - particularly the one-trick ponies of this era - because as someone else mentioned, email - a free, distributed standard - is what's holding all of them together. No one person controls email and anyone can write a client (email program) or if they're insane, even an MTA - the program that moves email around the Internet.
Same with Usenet.
Same with HTTP.
...
The Internet "hive brain" is still waiting for the killer app to join it together in the way these have - and one day, it will happen; but there's one thing that I can predict - no one company can be control it because the two concepts are diametrically opposed.
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The_Hess seems to believe that email is secure .... alas, it is not.
Email is no more secure than a postcard. Webmail services are akin to having a giant corporation look after your postcards. Most of them will have a computer read through your postcards so they can generate advertising profiles.
Email is routed across the internet and may pass through a number of servers any of which can copy the text.
The only way to secure email is by encrypting it, which few people do because of the difficulty of badgering the standard user into using encryption.
But it definitely isn't going away any time soon.
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How much was the BBC paid to advertise Facebook on this blog?
Email dead? Hah!
If you sign into Facebook you need....errr....to use your email address.
Email isnt going anywhere.
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Stupid notion.
Teens text/IM more because that is the kind of communication you do as a teenager, short snappy one liners in conversation style because you have lots of time on your hands to constantly go back and forth.
Adults do not have the same communication process and neither will these teeens when they grow up.
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I don't think email will ever die out. Its not restricted to teenagers only. Its used in business - sharing documents such as presentations, in the military and by friends around the world who arn't on facebook.
I've recently quit facebook because I hate it and i'm 20. I love email and always will.
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The last 20 years of my life have been as a remote teleworking IT professional and email is the lifeblood of my career.
Facebook is great for social stuff, but in its current form it will not replace email. Email doesnt require you all to be on the same network. Try getting a message from Facebook to Myspace etc. Walled Gardens?
Google Wave looked like a promising replacement, again until you realise that to make it work - everyone needs to be using the wave client.
Of course, email itself is nothing more than a conduit over which information is sent - started with text and now richly formatted html based messages. Tomorrow with HTML 5 who knows what you could embed in an email?
The future is out there!
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64. I was wondering the same. The BBC's love affair with "social media" is restricted to just two, very high profile and very rich sites.
I would also question, seriously, how much the licence fee payers are paying to Ms. Sheils to write these pithy comments? It's not exactly rocket science, now is it? Nor are they particularly newsworthy.
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Already business users are finding ways to reduce the torrent of emails. One is the use of team space or collaboration websites which bring a team together to work on projects, flag comments and issues which all can see, attach longer documents and invite comments, share calendars etc.
The big advantage is that one one site, all the communication is together, there are clear threads connecting different people's submissions together and there is no need for emails to go back and forth, and being missed or lost in the process.
I believe that increasingly communication, including email, will be within more defined environments, which will eliminate the spam scourge, bring a logic to the traffic and make communication more efficient.
I am already successfully using this on one team project. It's the way forward.
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"40% of those who use facebook and other sites are of non identity (made up, false) in order to gain access to young children"
Oh, Cheryl! where on earth did you dig up that ridiculous statistic from. Probably the same place that Vic Reeves got his famous "86% of statistics are made up on the spur of the moment - including that one"
By its very nature that sort of statistic is totally unmeasurable. And of course it's simply derived from some (mostly unintelligent) people's paranoia about paedophilia (they're everywhere you know!)
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@70. To add to this, you can find statistics like this in the Daily Mail almost every day and for the most part they're a harmless way to sell more newspapers.
Occasionally, they tread into dangerous scaremongering - like the ladies comment - or something more mundane like the Mail's idiotic campaign against feeding the starving millions in Africa. Of course, they called it Frankenstein Food Watch.
A more interesting statistic is that around 1% of the world's population are psychopathic; based on known statistics from the west, that is.
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It is laughable how every few weeks some self-righteous blogger or "industry insider" makes these sorts of declarations. I don't see myself posting all my business on a Facebook page and hoping the intended people read it anytime soon. I also don't plan to scroll through countless messages of who grew corn in Farmville to find communications that I need. I don't foresee many other people doing this either. Yes Facebook is fun and useful for some things but it is also chaotic and in may cases irritating. It is in no way a dependable and stable communication channel. Email is a central and necessary communications tool. I don't see it being replaced by anything on the radar at this point.
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Okay people...this is it...these are the facts and figures, whether you like them or not; or, believe them or not!
Enjoy...
May 8, 2010 2:21 PM PDT
Five hidden dangers of Facebook (Q&A)
Facebook claims that it has 400 million users. But are they well-protected from prying eyes, scammers, and unwanted marketers?
Not according to Joan Goodchild, senior editor of CSO (Chief Security Officer) Online.
She says your privacy may be at far greater risk of being violated than you know, when you log onto the social-networking site, due to security gaffes or marketing efforts by the company.
Facebook came under fire this past week, when 15 privacy and consumer protection organizations filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, charging that the site, among other things, manipulates privacy settings to make users' personal information available for commercial use. Also, some Facebook users found their private chats accessible to everyone on their contact list--a major security breach that's left a lot of people wondering just how secure the site is.
In two words, asserts Goodchild: not very.
On "The Early Show on Saturday Morning," Goodchild spotlighted five dangers she says Facebook users expose themselves to, probably without being aware of them:
1. Your information is being shared with third parties
2. Privacy settings revert to a less safe default mode after each redesign
3. Facebook ads may contain malware
4. Your real friends unknowingly make you vulnerable
5. Scammers are creating fake profiles
Below is an edited transcript of the interview.
Is Facebook a secure platform to communicate with your friends?
Here's the thing: Facebook is one of the most popular sites in the world. Security holes are being found on a regular basis. It is not as inherently secure as people think it is, when they log on every day.
Certainly, there are growing pains. Facebook is considered a young company, and it has been around a few years now. It is continuing to figure this out. They are so young, they are still trying to figure out how they are going to make money. It is hard to compare this to others; we have never had this phenomenon before in the way [so many] people are communicating with each other--only e-mail comes close.
The potential for crime is real. According to the Internet Crime Complaint Center, victims of Internet-related crimes lost $559 million in 2009. That was up 110 percent from the previous year. If you're not careful using Facebook, you are looking at the potential for identity theft, or possibly even something like assault, if you share information with a dangerous person you think is actually a "friend." One British police agency recently reported that the number of crimes it has responded to in the last year involving Facebook climbed 346 percent. These are real threats.
Lately, it seems a week doesn't go by without some news about a Facebook-related security problem. Earlier this week, TechCrunch discovered a security hole that made it possible for users to read their friends' private chats. Facebook has since patched it, but who knows how long that flaw existed? Some speculate it may have been that way for years.
Last month, researchers at VeriSign's iDefense group discovered that a hacker was selling Facebook usernames and passwords in an underground hacker forum. It was estimated that he had about 1.5 million accounts--and was selling them for between $25 and $45.
And the site is constantly under attack from hackers trying to spam these 400 million users, or harvest their data, or run other scams. Certainly, there is a lot of criticism in the security community of Facebook's handling of security. Perhaps the most frustrating thing is that the company rarely responds to inquiries.
Do people really have privacy on Facebook?
No. There are all kinds of ways third parties can access information about you. For instance, you may not realize that, when you are playing the popular games on Facebook, such as FarmVille, or take those popular quizzes--every time you do that, you authorize an application to be downloaded to your profile that gives information to third parties about you that you have never signed off on.
Does Facebook share info about users with third parties through things such as Open Graph?
Open Graph is a new concept for Facebook, which unveiled it last month at its F8 conference. It actually is basically a way to share the information in your profile with all kinds of third parties, such as advertisers, so they can have a better idea of your interests and what you are discussing, so Facebook can--as portrayed--"make it a more personal experience."
The theory behind Open Graph--even if it has not implemented it--is its whole business model, isn't it?
That is the business model--Facebook is trying to get you to share as much information as possible so it can monetize it by sharing it with advertisers.
Isn't it in Facebook's best interest to get you to share as much info as possible?
It absolutely is. Facebook's mission is to get you to share as much information as it can so it can share it with advertisers. As it looks now, the more info you share, the more money it is going to make with advertisers.
Isn't there also a security problem every time it redesigns the site?
Every time Facebook redesigns the site, which [usually] happens a few times a year, it puts your privacy settings back to a default in which, essentially, all of your information is made public. It is up to you, the user, to check the privacy settings and decide what you want to share and what you don't want to share.
Facebook does not [necessarily] notify you of the changes, and your privacy settings are set back to a public default. Many times, you may find out through friends. Facebook is not alerting you to these changes; it is just letting you know the site has been redesigned.
Can your real friends on Facebook also can make you vulnerable?
Absolutely. Your security is only as good as your friend's security. If someone in your network of friends has a weak password, and his or her profile is hacked, he or she can now send you malware, for example.
There is a common scam called a 419 scam, in which someone hacks your profile and sends messages to your friends asking for money - claiming to be you--saying, "Hey, I was in London, I was mugged, please wire me money." People fall for it. People think their good friend needs help--and end up wiring money to Nigeria.
A lot of Web sites we use display banner ads, but do we have to be wary of them on Facebook?
Absolutely: Facebook has not been able to screen all of its ads. It hasn't done a great job of vetting which ads are safe and which are not. As a result, you may get an ad in your profile when you are browsing around one day that has malicious code in it. In fact, last month, there was an ad with malware that asked people to download antivirus software that was actually a virus.
Is too big a network of friends dangerous?
You know people with a lot of friends--500, 1,000 friends on Facebook? What is the likelihood they are all real? There was a study in 2008 that concluded that 40 percent of all Facebook profiles are fake. They have been set up by bots or impostors.
If you have 500 friends, it is likely there is a percentage of people you don't really know, and you are sharing a lot of information with them, such as when you are on vacation, your children's pictures, their names. Is this information you really want to put out there to people you don't even know?
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@cheryl
You are using a quote from an article that is paraphrasing the results of another article. Classic Chinese Whispers.
Article 1: A study shows that *up to* 40% (between 20% and 40%) of *new* profiles *could be* fictitious and set up by automated processes for the purposes of spamming and malware
Article 2: 40% of Facebook profiles are fake
You: 40% of Facebook users are predatory paedophiles
Personally I just don't follow the logic.
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Hardly a replacement for the new extension of an old business tool, snail mail. PGP encryption for facebook communications? What would be the point of using a public means of communication for private comms?
This claim is both silly and naive, along the lines of the 'share and enjoy' philosophy in Microsoft that caused so many problems in Windows 95. Some people assume the contents of any communication are there for public consumption, in the way that MS thought everyone would want to share much of their material. So much so that the concept of security was completely alien to them, and we have ever since been trying to bring a runaway problem under control.
The same is true of Facebook, and their mucking about with privacy and security matters caused me to close my account down a while back.
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74. At 02:35am on 23 Jun 2010, Aidy wrote:
@cheryl
Article 2: 40% of Facebook profiles are fake
You: 40% of Facebook users are predatory paedophiles
Personally I just don't follow the logic.
The logic is a mixture of things, including the non sequitur argument; it 'does not follow from'. Whether 40% of Facebook users really are paedophiles is yet to be empirically determined. IOW the OP's response is without substance of any kind.
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What utter tosh!
The fact that social networks are so public puts an end to this argument in an instant
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Facebook and its ilk are all well and good if I want to update dozens of friends in far-flung places about things going on in my life. It provides a way to have a text chat with someone in real-time without the cost of using the phone (if you can tolerate a tiny window in one corner of the screen). Perhaps it's a way of sharing some holiday snaps on your return.
I can't understand why people broadcast their coming holidays in such a public setting especially when it seems to be the "done thing" to accept any friend request no matter how tenuous the link with the person making it.
It's also clear that whereas Facebook is fine for sharing holiday snaps and telling the world how great you feel about whatever it is today, it's totally unsuited for anything that requires any sense of privacy at all, or for anything much over and above "Bill is feeling good today". Given how much email contains far more detailed discussion than "Bill is feeling good" with a reply "Hey Bill, I'm feeling good too", there's still a place for email for years to come.
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Good afternoon,
As a business, I use email and telephone for conducting my business,
and the good old fashioned telephone is by far the best form of communication. It is interactive and you get immediate feedback and it adds the personal touch that email and other electronic/digital communication so severely lacks. Yes, email/ftp is needed for transferring files for client projects, or better yet, just deliver/pickup in person with a usb drive, then you get the in person social interaction that was allways there, before the internet arrived. Thank you for reading.
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i own a social network. i also own a paid email service. most sites, including social networks, require an email address for registration. and contact.
a quick way to keep up with mails received from friends in your social network is to have them copied to your email address.
newsletters and other information sent out in bulk are still sent to people's email addresses.
we may be in the last days of free email accounts however, but this is largely due to users setting up accounts for registration purposes and letting them fill up and bounce.. and the providers themselves charging us to go on their white lists.
all of which costs so much in time and money that many of us have outlawed them and openly reject attempts by anyone to register at our sites using a free email account, be it google, yahoo, hotmail or anyone else.
certainly you will hear more from me and my service as all my users get paid a passive income (without selling/recruiting) and i am using the profits we make from it to get people off unemployment benefits, in addition to supplementing pensions and disability benefits.
i have approached all parties and all government departments over the past few years on this, to work towards putting my systems in place to replace benefits, pensions, council tax, rents, tv licencing, insurance schemes etc etc but no-one has shown any interest and all my letters and emails have been ignored.
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Applications designed for work place communication, like Google Wave, are far more likely to take the centre stage from email... I don't expect to be wearing designer trainers to work in the near future either...
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I think email will not die out, however, will take another form than what we know email as today.
Recently google has created an application called 'Google Wave'. They say it's the end of email, and i agree with them 100%.
It's basicly an email, social network, IM, calender, file sharing and everything else you could think of into one big app. I think this will be the way forward when people have people caught onto it when it's out of BETA.. (I think it's still in BETA, not sure?).
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I couldn't disagree more with your analysis. Email is the medium which links what is still fragmented social networking. I can check my email and by replying to an email have replied to a friend without the hassle of logging on. With email i contact businesses, university and people abroad. I'm sure the information researched here does not take into account the number of spam messages on Facebook. If you compared email to social networking messages i'm sure that word for word more is sent by email. Email is a more useful tool, i have backed up on various hard drives every email i have ever sent/received and a large amount is also stored in the cloud. All of my correspondence on Facebook/twitter is hard to search through meaningfully and even harder to organize. Although a useful tool i don't think social networking will kill email anytime soon.
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Ms Sandberg claims: "If you want to know what you'll be doing tomorrow, look at what teens are doing today."
Well I guess we'll see Ms Sandberg hanging out at bus stops drinking buckie and trying hard to impress members of the opposite sex.
Think I'll try and age with some dignity.
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Let's get one thing clear…if email is ever to be replaced it will be replaced by a similar, though updated, standard. The beauty of e-mail is that it is simply an open standard that lets any e-mail system receive and broadcast email to any other system and it is up to those systems what they do with the email. That is why you can have a client like Outlook which is all-singing, all-dancing and stores your e-mail locally, and you can also have hotmail that stores your e-mails centrally for you to look at from any machine. It is why there are spam filters and e-mail virus checkers too.
E-mail will *NEVER* (I can't stress that enough) be replaced by *ANY* system that is owned by a third party. Why would businesses up and down the land throw away control of their vital communications architecture and instead place their data and needs in the hands of A. N. Company? Sure Google and Facebook seem like they are a part of the internet right now….but AOL seemed the same when it was running too. As did Compuserve. If you're asking yourself who AOL and Compuserve are and what they have to do with the internet then I'll consider the point well and truly made. When we're all using Google Wave instead of e-mail how do we communicate when google get crushed and pushed aside by the next great contender? How do we run when google execs are prosecuted for unethical gathering of data and are forced to re-evaluate how they work?
Then there are the technical implications. To you an e-mail might just be some text and maybe a PDF or JPG attachment, but to me an e-mail to a certain address might trigger an automated process of some sort. Maybe your e-mail system recognises things like sender details, mail subject and priority but maybe my e-mail system has a raft of custom-defined fields that my bespoke client uses to decide how the e-mail is to be processed? How are these features going to work when we're using third-party products that don't support our needs?
This whole idea, to anyone who actually understands, is just silly. It's already been said on these comments and I'll say it again…the original remarks were either born for incredible naivety or were a deliberate marketing stunt, and shame on the BBC for even giving it webspace.
Now, I believe Apple are releasing a new phone so you'd better get right on that.
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Nice one Aidy.
Which brings me to another issue - Google in particular is having a ball taking over email from our ISPs: notably Virginmedia and Sky.
This looks like good business for the ISPs because they essentially offload a huge part of their infrastructure at (I assume) no cost.
The down side for us mortals is precisely what Aidy is implying here: privacy. Google has a poor record in this regard and with the current problems in Europe over its gathering of wireless data, I don't see that issue being resolved any time soon.
THIS sort of thing is precisely what I would expect the BBC to report.
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I personally can't see a case for saying that email is on its way out. I and most of my friends use it all the time. On the minus side there is spam, but It is becoming easier now to protect yourself against it. I had been using Facebook occasionally, but that is even more open to abuse. A relative of mine was victim of a really disgusting series of hate messages on Facebook by someone who stole another person's identity! Facebook did investigate it but the damage had already been done. As a Mac user, I would recommend the customisable protection you get on their mail service. I understand that most suppliers have similar facilities nowadays. I only use Facebook now when I have to and with some trepidation! Twitter has not yet impinged on my consciousness. As you can observe, I am not into brief messaging!
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This article is neither silly or asanine, as in fact its pretending to be "controversial" tag line achieved its objective, it got a least 80 of you to write a social message. Why didn't you use email? Spot the irony. hehe :-)
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Not really ironic, 88.
The only way we can reply to this asinine piece of lacklustre journalism is to post to the bulletin board: we can't use email to get to it. Yeah, this is a evolutionary BBS not that different from those of the 1970s and 80s.
We can't even use email to complain about it - that has to go through a laborious process that the BBC must be chortling about.
The real thrust of the social commentary here, if I'm correct, is bemoaning our money being wasted on such drivel - and it's easier to make these observations in a public forum and hope someone takes note than it is to fill out several pages of the dedicated complaints website (complaints.bbc.co.uk, if you fancy a punt).
What I have noticed is a great number of commentators clearly know a lot more about the subject than the "expert" that the BBC is employing. Sadly this is more and more the case these days.
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She would say that, wouldn't she......as an employee of Facebook
Doh !
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I certainly don't email as much as I used to. Saying that, it doesn't exactly mean I don't email every day. There are better ways to communicate depending on the communication itself. Email will carry on for a long, long time.
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Being a teenager myself i find it funny that this woman should publically announce the death of e-mail based on my age group. Of course we don't use e-mail; the only function e-mail serves for me is notifications from companies or sites for example: dealings with companies like UCAS or Amazon. As most of us don't have jobs there's no need for us to use e-mail's simple, mainly formal setup. I think it is widely accepted that as a social group we really have nothing of note to say and the majority of us fill social networking sites with these inane ramblings because they allow access to a larger group of people with UI features to supplement this.
I for one have a facebook account but only occassionally use it to keep track of friends. If i wanted to detail my life i certainly wouldn't tell every mutual friend i knew (that's what diaries are for)!
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THE POINT EVERY ONE HAS MISSED:
You need an email account to set up a social network account??
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Dear Ms Sandberg - All too often people get things wrong, just check out Thomas J Watson’s quote in American Scientist in 1970:
“I went to see Professor Douglas Hartree, who had built the first differential analyzers in England and had more experience in using these very specialized computers than anyone else. He told me that, in his opinion, all the calculations that would ever be needed in this country could be done on the three digital computers which were then being built — one in Cambridge, one in Teddington, and one in Manchester. No one else, he said, would ever need machines of their own, or would be able to afford to buy them.”
Give technology a chance to develop and it can change everything………
I would also like to point out that you need an email address to register on the majority of social networking sites.
And as a leading supplier of hosted email solutions, I am happy to report that we have had our most profitable and successful year ever.
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LOL @ 93, so true :) Saying email is (soon) dead is like microsoft saying the keyboard and mouse is (soon) dead. Sure back in the day E-mail was used as a way to talk, as is facebook and texting, but it's alot more now. My E-mail address is also a easy to remember account number for people to pay me money (paypal). Imaging what would take over from email? :S
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@16 "I really hope that these social networking sites fold and are totally absolved!"
..Amen to that. With all the security loopholes and other problems sites like that have, it's quite frightening to think that email may even be the safe option. Also, for want of a better way of putting it...every time I've been forced to look at someone's FB page, I'm struck by the non-content it contains.
I'm now 28 and my impression of facebook is that I've already outgrown it, whilst Twitter...what's the point? To me FB is something kids play around on to waste time when they could have actual hobbies and spend time with the friends they're virtually tagging instead of just spamming them with silly remarks from their bedroom pc. The world is not inside a computer screen. Contrary to popular belief.
All these methods need to exist for now, most probably. I'm sure that a good proportion of those teenagers would implode if Facebook suddenly disappeared, making the future population count of this country severely reduced.
But I imagine there's still a need for email, and other forms of communication such as *gasp* snail mail which still seems just as thriving despite all the electronic developments.
The day Facebook takes over all online communication is the day I pull the modem plug and set fire to my laptop. If the future is us all "liking this" and communicating about nothing important in text speak, count me out.
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Social networking is OK if you are spotty youth with nothing better to do than talk rubbish with other spotty youths. Real people will continue to use email, where you can use your full vocabulary to express your point of view or describe complex situations. I seem to remember they said instant messaging would be the next killer app, now that is almost as dead as the dodo.
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Anyone who thinks I'm giving a "social network" personal information to join it, let alone using it as a correspondence replacement, are out of their tiny minds.
And I'm confident I'm not alone taking that position. I bet the parents of those idiot kids who advertise their parent free parties on the Net, probably feel the same, for a start.
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Many people are correct, the email system is used for communication that is beyond that which the 'social networks' cope with.
However, it might still be replaced in the not too distant future. Services such as skype are catching on fast, I use it a lot for business and pleasure, you can talk, phone, videoconf, send files etc. If skype is ever extended to allow it to receive something similar to email, e.g. to have a 'letter box' to which people can send 'letters' or 'postcards' with images, documents and similar attachments then I see that could well replace the email. It would be nice to have a single point of contact - effectively a 'postal', 'email', 'phone' address all rolled into one. And skype can operate on mobile devices as well as PC's.
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@anotherfakename #99
The transport that delivers Skype data is the same that delivers email. Saying Skype could replace email is like saying that the taxi will get rid of cars, as with taxis no-one needs to drive themselves.
Skype also has the same issues that Facebook has in that the technology is propriety and not open. You'd be handing control of your data to a company called Skype rather than one called Facebook.
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Personally I've been glad to see the social interaction of email get significantly lower thanks to social networking sites.
However, for business I would not consider social networking to be a serious tool to replace email. The inherent lack of security, the tendency of people to natter about every little thing that happens in their day and the tendency to get sidetracked by rubbish makes it unreliable.
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@Aidy: There are several Skype-like services which use open platform, but unlike BBC Online I won't be giving any of them free plugs! Anyone interested can just google (as in search online) for VOIP services (Voice over IP).
I've been using one for about three years as my main telephone service and it's excellent - it even has a real telephone number and works with a real telephone. VOIP is big business outside of Skype because it's easily integrated with existing networks and can give businesses excellent telecommunications features at very low cost.
That said, Aidy's point is entirely correct; and even the system that I employ cannot work without the distributed network of servers we call the Internet.
Social networks rely on young people's lack of common sense regarding their privacy: perhaps they're just not cynical like the rest of us who has long-since rejected such things as puerile.
I felt a little sick at our politicians lauding themselves over the head of Facebook recently.
Facebook is a one-trick pony. It's a good trick, but all good tricks come to an end. Ahum. Facebook and Twitter have received massive amounts of venture capital too and remain unproven concepts in the long-term.
Who else can recall the fate of Compuserve, AOL or even Friendsreunited?
This bizarre love affair with "the next big thing" has me fascinated - I've even likened it to the business version eugenics; the end result is likely to be the same. Time will tell.
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To those who have posted that email is private and secure: I am sorry, but you are sadly deluded. Ordinary email has the privacy and security of using a paper dart to carry a message to your collegue across the street. That is to say, it is neither private nor secure in any way whatsoever.
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I am really bemused that so mean people put so much trust and failth in email. I work in Internet security for an ISP and email is primary attack vector that criminals are using. This is why so many companies and sprung up dealing with email security (message labs,mimecast, sophos, webroot, symantec...the list is endless).
The fact of the matter is that email was designed for a different time period, in the early days of the Internet where people trusted each other and it did the job, to well. The adoption of email blew the original expectations out of the water and clear into kingdom come.
Unfortunately the email protocol SMTP did not scale to what the Internet has become and instead of redesign it to become more stable, robust and secure techies bolted add on's (eSMTP/TLS) still leaving the foundations flimsy.
We need to move away from email. A quick Google around the internet show that IBM and HP are investing in a very big way in to social networking for businesses this can only mean that it is on the way. I foresee protocols and agreements between the major social networking sites (facebook,Twiter,Google,Microsoft) to share information and posts.
Ask you self, what is stopping Amazon from alerting me via my social networking site that my parcel is on the way? Legal stuff one might argue, but once that is sorted out... Nothing.
Social Networking will solve some of emails headaches (I am well aware it will create new ones headaches too) But it is coming to corporate environment near you soon.
As a security professional I would like to see a moment away from the use of SMTP (email) as a method of business communication and it will happen, just a matter of time. Will email die... no it will just be there to reset your social networking account
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@Peter P #104
> I am really bemused that so mean people put so much trust and failth in email
If transport security is a concern then at least it *can* be made to be secure.
> A quick Google around the internet show that IBM and HP are investing in a very
> big way in to social networking for businesses this can only mean that it is on the way.
"Social networking for businesses" - isn't that an oxymoron? And didn't IBM also heavily invest in OS2, Lotus Notes and another string of technological failures? If IBM are investing then it’s more likely that it means it is on its way out.
> Ask you self, what is stopping Amazon from alerting me via my social networking site that
> my parcel is on the way?
Because maybe I don't have an account on the social networking sites that Amazon supports? That Amazon can't be bothered developing integration with every Tom, Dick and Harry social network site on the net?
> Social Networking will solve some of emails headaches (I am well aware it will create new ones
> headaches too) But it is coming to corporate environment near you soon.
"Social networking" is already here in the corporate environment though Sharepoint and similar products of which there are already many.
> As a security professional
A security professional that doesn't appreciate why business does not want to hand all of its private data to third party websites that already have a string of privacy issues to date.
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I doubt very much emails will die any time soon. I work in academia and receive around 200 emails a day after spam has been filtered out. My father works in his own small private company and gets the same. Mailing lists, ticketing systems, elogs, blogs, private small groups, big groups, blind, not blind, one liners, biblically long, online, offline... you name it. None of the alternative has the communication power, flexibility and distribution emails have.
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Interesting report just out - use of email in Canada drops by 35% in the last two years http://www.ipsos-na.com/news-polls/pressrelease.aspx?id=4844
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Facebook is the electronic equivalent of teenage tattoos; seems incredibly cool when you 16 but by the time your 30 you'll be regretting ever having it.
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Its all about security . Email you can send to an idividual with a document. That can be scanned by the recievers PC for virus's . Face book and Twitter are the same as forums that have been arround for the last 20 years in one form or another . They will not replace email and never will. Something might one day but it wont be a fad like facebook.
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@Mike #107
That study includes spam though...so you don't know how much of the reduction was due to spam networks being shut down and better spam filtering etc.
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I think the opposite may start to happen other the next few years in many users groups and email starts to be used again more.
Ever cheaper smartphones mean that email is rapidly reaching people as instantly as a text message, and you can send additional content as attachements more easily as well as seperating out work and personal etc.
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@Mike #107:
I'm with Aidy.
We should always be careful not to conflate the correlation with a causation.
That's the sort of bad science that gives real scientists a bad name; and the Daily Mail something to whine about.
Do high-voltage overhead power lines cause cancer? Not likely - but talk to people who live under some and you'll hear a very different story.
Winston Churchill once said (I'm doing this from memory) that "A lie can get half way around the world faster than the truth can get his pants on." and this saying has never been more salient as it is today.
To paraphrase Churchill, "These days an appealing fallacy can get right around the world in time to have a three course meal with an attractive belief before a fact has time to hit the snooze button."
Instantly.
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Companies will hand there data happily over to third property systems, when the cost benefits makes sense. What woke we up to this was the Guardian newspaper moving over 2300 of its employees over to Google Apps, the article cites one of reasons as looking for “a modern technological working environment"
(http://www.silicon.com/technology/networks/2009/02/12/the-guardian-goes-google-apps-39396187/)
I have not read a lot more about this in the press but from what I understand it is still on going and working well but no official communication on this. Google Apps is by no means a success but it being hotly followed by Microsoft WebApps. Both companies have integrated there social network apps into there web app software and are not marketing this as social networking software for business (I am told this is a oxymoron), but business software.
Software As A Service (SaaS) is here now and as business continue to look to reduce cost and increase effectiveness companies will gladly hand over their data to social networking sites, sorry business software sites (bloody oxymoron's), even if they had a string of security incidents and it will reduce the amount of email.
Well done to the BBC for putting this out to a public forum, with over 112 posts to this blog it show that it is well worth the web space! And worth more.
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What a load of twaddle.
It's like people who said computers would see the paperless office - and that proved to be as true as the paperless toilet.
I remember seeing a news item saying nuclear power stations promises us a future of limitless, cheap electricity - and I'll bet somewhere in the BBC news archives you've got one of your venerable journalists saying that very thing. Maybe you should join them!
Just don't go round saying robots will mean we'll have a future of leisure.
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Nuclear power may perhaps offer us a future of limitless, cheap electricity; but one does have to commit and invest in it. But that's perhaps another issue :-)
I think there's a great deal to commend this argument. It isn't difficult to work in an environment in which one is contactable virtually anywhere, face to face and in real-time. the question really is which of the possible communication paradigms will be taken up and to what extent we will be prepared to take a leap into an unfamiliar model.
What we have now: telephones - email - social networking, these are all just stepping stones to something beyond. it's the six year olds of today who hold the key to what will be acceptable in 20 years time.
The important thing, from my point of view, is that the possibilities of this technology won't end up being a reactionary force in our efforts to communicate. I'd like to see efforts extended to keep as much of what's possible in the public domain.
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Paperless toilet! Nice one Turk, I must remember that truism.
"Well done to the BBC for putting this out to a public forum, with over 112 posts to this blog it show that it is well worth the web space! And worth more."
Again, someone else is conflating the causation with the correlation; in this case, 112 replies must mean we all agree. Read them. Most of us (particularly the ones who know something about this technology) are enraged at this low-quality piffle.
I only come back to see if there's been a more interesting post.
Ms. Sheils, if you're going to blog - do us the decency of providing us with something you didn't just get spoon fed from a self-serving business.
What counts now - and what will be divisive in future - is decentralisation. Google (bless it) is supposed to have a mission of "Don't be evil" yet it continues to attempt to ensnare more an more users with innocent little applications that increase our reliance on a single provider. Even to the point of "accidentally" stealing data from unencrypted wireless networks - which innocent or not, is still a crime in most countries.
Right now, four or five companies, all of them US-based are vying to centralise what we do in this "cloud" which is another way of really having more of a say in our lives than most of us would like. We have a (fading) love-affair with America - a country that can't really keep its own house in order where religious nut-jobs are pushing for ever-more political and financial control. Little wonder that 2nd world countries with opposing religious viewpoints regard it with such suspicion.
The internet (Arpanet, as it was then) was based on one central tenet: decentralisation and I suspect that in the end, all attempts to reverse that will be doomed to failure. Time will tell.
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I think your blog highlights an interesting point.
Or, rather, it would, if you weren't sorely lacking in technical understanding.
The messages on facebook ARE emails. All of the major social networks include internal mail systems - these are, in effect, email. They are mail, sent electronically. Unless we give up the internet entirely, email can't possibly die out - it can merely change superficially.
Any message sent over an electronic network is, by definition, email.
Can the BBC please hire people who have some sort of basic understanding of technology?
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I think an important point is that teenagers are using social networks as a replacement for telephone calls. I've seen many of them using their smartphones to post messages on Facebook and such, rather than calling. Of course, SMS rules in that domain!
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@Auqakuh #117
Oh dear. Email is the name given not to any electronic message, but one sent via the SMTP protocol. Messages on Facebook are not emails.
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I would miss email big time. I don't get on well with phones (I'm Hearing Impaired and can't always understand things properly given verbally) but email avoids that problem. It also enables me to inform my school of why my oldest son is off and if he has an appointment coming up without going through the school office (who have a history of not passing such messages on). Email enables communication with my american relatives. And so on....
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Shameless publicity stunt on Facebook if you ask me!
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This article is tosh. E-mail is used to distribute information to a specified target audience. Unless social networking can provide a better interface than email it will never replace it. There could be some mileage in storing a single copy of an email in the cloud and messaging the recipients the location of the information. So email will become more like social networking. The probability is that because Social networking relies on leaky communication to reinforce its hold on people that it will never allow the user to target the audience accurately enough for business use. So no, email is not dead.
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I am amazed at the amount of comments that disagree with this article.
I am an IT Consultant and I regularly setup email servers for clients. I mostly agree with this article. Email is nearly finished because we are all saturated by it and I am not talking about spam.
Before email we used to write letters or send faxes, this was often an unwanted task so these things tended to be worth it. These days people send out emails because they are too lazy to find out information for themselves even if all they have to do is search the web or indeed their own inbox.
Also, email is awful for collaborative documents, I see people emailing word files around trying to keep track of the most recent version and then not wanting to throw away the many revisions.
I think systems like Wikis, Google Docs and MS Sharepoint (probably not really) and other collaboration centred systems will take over from email. My guess is email will remain an interim helper for these systems but eventually we will be looking to richer websites that are able to manage all kinds of information.
I think Maggie Shiels's article is in the right direction but I think in business it will be facebook like systems that are focused on a project rather than a night out, this will be far more helpful than the system we have at the moment. A system where everyone on the project can access a site full of tasks and communications and documents.
I am giving email 5 years to be replaced by one of these systems and this will be more than just email, throw out your file servers, backup servers, email servers, CRMs and other databases, I think most people and companies will be able to use cloud based services where the computer in front of them is merely an appliance that you use to logon to.
Yes, I know that will also mean my line of work is at risk, well, I think if you are smart you will evolve with the rest of the world and the business will be in the short term how to help people migrate to these new services and then after that my industry will be for consultant administrators that know what services to use for different tasks.
We will all see....
David
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I agree with others here. I'm 48, been in IT 12 years and am now an IT manager. When email came in it was the death knell on the postal services - but they are still here (sort of). Teens (my daughter especially) sends txt msgs because it's fast but come business communication texts just don't cut it. People also don't realise email is a legal document. I also hold that as much care should be taken over an email as a written letter as I see grammar standards falling continuously. I think email will be around a while yet. BTW - I don't have or intend to have a Facebook or Twitter account.
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@David Lee #123
> Email is nearly finished because we are all saturated by it
Surely by definition we'll also be saturated by its replacement?
> I think systems like Wikis, Google Docs and MS Sharepoint (probably
> not really) and other collaboration centred systems will take over from email.
Why must one thing "take over"? Why would a collaboration system "take over" from a communication system when they both fulfil completely different needs? What good is a collaboration system when I'm chasing Amazon about my latest shipment? What good is a collaboration system when I'm sending a catch-up mail to a friend?
Collaboration systems will become more prevalent as they get better, but they will exist side-by-side with email.
> I am giving email 5 years to be replaced by one of these systems and
> this will be more than just email, throw out your file servers, backup
> servers, email servers, CRMs and other databases, I think most people
> and companies will be able to use cloud based services
And how do I recover critical databases that are gigs in size over slow connections, or if my network access is down? Why would I put the critical operations of my company in the hands of an ISP who, frankly, doesn't care that our net access has gone down? Why would I give third party companies all of my private data? If I own the cloud why wouldn't I just hold the data locally?
> Yes, I know that will also mean my line of work is at risk
Unlikely. When you "consult" people simply give them bad advice and tell them to ditch their e-mail and servers and 6 months later when their business is crippled you can "consult" them to install e-mail systems and local servers to cure their woes. Rinse and repeat.
BTW, there are very sophisticated collaborative systems out there already that give rich control over versioning, tasks, calendars etc etc, and it's all on local networks where the business owners are in complete control and ownership of the data with not a cloud in sight.
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nonsense, she is not looking over her own littel horizon first of all and second of all as the COO of Facebook you would say something like that.
Facebook is a leisure application, not a business communication tool. Not everyone will want poster their communications all over the web for all and sundry to see. I certainly don't and as I am a working person I have no time to socialize-network all day long telling my mates how my last toilet progressed and what I think of my collegues hairstyle.
Business is STILL struggling to find a handle on social network sites (anyopne telling you otherwise is lying) and if they can't it won't be used to replaced email or any other serious business app.
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Dear, its we don't agree with you. Email has its own value over social networking site.
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@119
Oh dear. Email is the name given not to any electronic message, but one sent via the SMTP protocol. Messages on Facebook are not emails.
Quite wrong, although I see your point and on one level, it's accurate; that is that email in the modern sense generally refers to one method of transporting digital messages, namely SMTP.
But email has actually existed longer than SMTP, firstly. MTP, for example, predates SMTP. Further, there are local network varieties of transfer protocol (EMSD, for example). All of these transfer "mail" and refer to the mail, as mail.
The messages sent on a social networking site - and I do mean private messages, not posts on forum-equivalents (walls on facebook, for example) - are mail. Indeed, until fairly recently, they were referred to as mail on most sites; the only reason you've seen a shift from "mail" to "message" is branding-related - the SNs wish to be associated with something that most users are already familiar with: instant messengers.
Arguably, therefore, any system which transmits, receives, and stores non-live messages (IE, messages which are not instantly transmitted to the client and can be retrieved at a later date) are email.
In fact, one could argue (and I have done so in the past in blog posts) that forums are an outgrowth of email, merely being a publically-viewable form with a HTTP interface. All non-live interaction is definable as "mail". Just like snail-mail, it's not dependent on you being there to read it the instant it arrives; unlike, for example, a vocal communication. If someone speaks out loud and you are not there, you do not get the message later unless it is recorded. Once it is recorded, it is mail.
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Actually, I think I'll further my point somewhat. Namely: the internet is a building.
It has always been a building, in the sense that the early years laid the foundations and that the years that follow have then built upon them.
In many senses, email is at the very core of how the internet works; UUCP, Unix-to-Unix Copy Protocol, was at one time used for email. And UUCP grew into Usenet; when HTTP came along and the HTML writers started getting innovative and developed simple threaded forums, these were, in effect, a mimicry of UUCP's Usenet discussion system.
Social networks? Just Usenet on the Web, again, but prettier and with a nicer UI. There's really no difference: Usenet was and is a collaborative and sharing tool - a social network. Modern social networks have pretty graphics and streamlined user interfaces, but they're really no different to old bulletin board services or Usenet once you get down to how they work and what they do.
The Internet isn't changing. It's merely getting better at what it's always done, and the origins won't go away because they're what gave us what we have now. Usenet still exists - it's use has shifted to filesharing, somewhat, but some people still use it for sharing information, for various reasons.
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I dont think it will die out just yet, what about air travel confirmations, insurance policy emails, not to mention business e-mail, i dont see them using facebook and twitter.
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"I am an IT Consultant and I regularly setup email servers for clients. I mostly agree with this article."
Just count yourself lucky you don't work for me. Actually, I'll count myself lucky too. Are you really an IT consultant or did you just call yourself that?
You write like someone who grew up on a diet of HTTP, Google and Microsoft boilerplate. There was a whole world of networking before Internet; and it's still doing very nicely, thank you.
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@Auqakuh #128
> any system which transmits, receives, and stores non-live messages (IE, messages
> which are not instantly transmitted to the client and can be retrieved at a later date)
> are email.
No. Email are messages sent over SMTP.
@Auqakuh #129
> In many senses, email is at the very core of how the internet works
No. It's just another protocol on top of TCP/IP, and TCP/IP is at the core of how the internet works. SMTP, HTTP, FTP etc are just icing on the TCP/IP cake.
> Social networks? Just Usenet on the Web, again, but prettier and with a nicer UI.
No. Usenet is simply a distributed threaded message system. Social networks do far, far more.
> Usenet was and is a collaborative and sharing tool
No. It's just a threaded message system.
> Modern social networks have pretty graphics and streamlined user interfaces,
> but they're really no different to old bulletin board services or Usenet
No. Usenet lacks persistent profiles, image galleries, personal "walls", status updates, lists of friends. Basically I could write all night about what features social networks have that usenet doesn't.
Anyway...as I said...email is now the term given to SMTP messaging specifically and your off-topic water-muddying doesn't change that.
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Has no one realised that Sheryl Sandberg is a troll. This is just a deliberately provocative statement designed to elicit a response from its readers. Don't feed the trolls. Trolls thrive on the oxygen of controversy. Deny them the oxygen and they'll expire along with the ridiculous statements they espouse. Just ignore her and she'll go away. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet).
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If Facebook and Twitter die off I for one won't miss them.
In terms of email or similar methods, business needs an audit trail to do business. Social networking sites do not provide this.
What we should actually focus on is email 2.0. This is where you can't email unless there is real repudiation. I for one would be happy to pay for each email I send if it allowed the avoidance of spam. I can't see spammers, spending $20 million dollars at $1 per email shot to get one person hooked.
Yes that creates two-tier email, but it starts to avoid the billions of emails that just end up in the bit bucket. Want free email? Accept the spam problem. Then Google and others will see that the "real money" are not those on the free email system but on the PAYG email system. Then they will have to invest in solving .
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@132
No. Usenet is not merely a threaded message system. It also allows filesharing and has for many years. But even if it's only feature were the sharing of text, social networks are networks of individuals, communicating. Text is a medium for communication. Ergo, Usenet is and was a social network. No, it doesn't have profiles, or walls, but these things are just development from a core: namely, threaded communication and collaboration.
Usenet was and is a sharing tool - one that incidentally grew up almost entirely because of email. Web forums, equally, grew out of Usenet - and forums are early social communities. The only major difference is that Usenet confers a greater degree of anonymity - which, considering privacy issues on modern web-based social networks, could be argued to be a strong feature, not a disadvantage.
Also, please reread what I wrote. Yes, email nowadays is widely acknowledged to be only using SMTP, but this was not always the case; further, a parcel is clearly quite different to a letter, but both are mail.
Finally, while email isn't the technical core of the internet (and I indeed never said it was), it is a predecessor of most services found online... in the same way that snail mail is a predecessor to email, and the horse and cart are an ancestor to the car.
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@Auqakuh #135
> Yes, email nowadays is widely acknowledged to be only using SMTP
There you go, that wasn't hard. All you had to do was admit I was right and you could have avoided all those paragraphs of off-topic miscellanea.
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@Auqaku and @Aidy - guys, guys...
We're all starting to sound like a bunch of experts at a beginners party! ;-)
I rather think you're both correct; which is a dichotomy all of its own. Or is that a paradox? I can never really tell...
The issue really here is that Maggie Sheil's blog is really rather pointless - and I for one would love to know what amount of our money the BBC is paying for this tiresome - and irregular - twaddle.
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@ Aidy #125
> Surely by definition we'll also be saturated by its replacement?
I think a lot of the messages we get will no longer be needed. If a colleague has updated a document you will no longer need a real email to tell you, often people will write too much in such emails to direct someone to where the updated file is and possibly a note as to what they might have changed. Also, task systems will help people understand where their project is at and not need as many emails from people.
I think also, in the future without email people will be able to focus more on the work they are doing. I am seeing so many people sending and receiving hundreds of email per week, I just think it is too much now.
> Why must one thing "take over"? Why would a collaboration
> system "take over" from a communication system when they
> both fulfil completely different needs? What good is a
> collaboration system when I'm chasing Amazon about my latest
> shipment? What good is a collaboration system when I'm
> sending a catch-up mail to a friend?
Not sure they are completely different, collaborating generates lots of emails.
Many online companies use ticketing systems instead of email to manage their customers, ok, you do get an email prompt when a ticket is replied to but this is a collaborative system that is used internally to deal with your requests. This is not new and more of it is coming.
Many people are catching up with their friends using Facebook already, no need to email. You can't deny that vast numbers of people are turning away from email for systems like Facebook.
> Unlikely. When you "consult" people simply give them bad advice and tell
> them to ditch their e-mail and servers and 6 months later when their
> business is crippled you can "consult" them to install e-mail systems and
> local servers to cure their woes. Rinse and repeat.
I have already moved a couple of clients over to Google Docs and it means that my clients no longer need to worry about the system, it is much cheaper, better, faster and reliable. There are loads of case studies of companies moving to Google Docs.
> BTW, there are very sophisticated collaborative systems out there already
> that give rich control over versioning, tasks, calendars etc etc, and it's
> all on local networks where the business owners are in complete control and
> ownership of the data with not a cloud in sight.
Yes, I guess you can have control but do you need it? Online services can often provide a better service, more frequent backups, higher availability, scalability and lower costs.
Anyway, thanks for your comments.
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@ marcdraco #131
> Just count yourself lucky you don't work for me. Actually, I'll count myself
> lucky too. Are you really an IT consultant or did you just call yourself
> that?
> You write like someone who grew up on a diet of HTTP, Google and Microsoft
> boilerplate. There was a whole world of networking before Internet; and it's
> still doing very nicely, thank you.
Seems a bit harsh, but thanks for the response.
Not sure I follow your point.
> There was a whole world of networking before Internet; and it's
> still doing very nicely, thank you.
Ok, I am please things are still working for you but I predict we will not need our infrastructure in the future. I am not saying we should put everything on to cloud based services right now, a lot more work needs to be done.
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I think it will seriously impact email. Not because it is a better system, but because email is so badly used, simple social network systems end up far more efficient.
In the original method for replies to email involves just quoting the relevant snippets of the original message, and commenting or replying to each point underneath individually. This provides logical and efficient communication. (It is sometimes called inline quoting)
However, most people are either too lazy to do this or don't even realise they can or should, and they simply send the ENTIRE previous message back, with their replies written ABOVE it. (On newsgroups this is called top posting.)
This has many problems.
The recipient can never be sure the sender actually read their original message properly.
There can be ambiguity over which part of the original message the reply refers to. (especially if one party has preconceptions about the other party)
The messages are big and unwealdy, require scrolling up and down to follow, and can run up data and storage costs.
If the message is forwarded, it is very easy to overlook something that might be confidential or just plain embarassing.
It doesn't naturally make you reply to each part of the email, it also doesn't naturally induce a pause to think before firing of a reply.
Social networking systems and texts tend be be short and only contain one subject, and don't end up back to front. Meaning they are easier and quicker to follow and far less likely to be misunderstood. No wonder people are migrating to them.
If people use email efficiently (there is even an internet recommendation - RFC1855 explain how it should be done), then it is one of my preferred methods of communication, if not texts and facebook messages are far more useful.
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"In the original method for replies to email involves just quoting the relevant snippets of the original message, and commenting or replying to each point underneath individually. This provides logical and efficient communication. (It is sometimes called inline quoting)
"However, most people are either too lazy to do this or don't even realise they can or should, and they simply send the ENTIRE previous message back, ith their replies written ABOVE it. (On newsgroups this is called top posting.)"
A good point, well explained, Jess at the Twittermark (there's a new one for you - the 140th posting in a blog reply is the Twittermark).
There is an alternative view on this: while netiquette prefers inline posting, human speech doesn't work that way.
Further, we should be very careful to assume that the person is too lazy (or unaware of this).
Inlining can actually pick a part a person's argument in such a way it's easy to make them (the OP or orginal poster) like a buffoon by breaking the original text completely out of context - logical fallacies like "poisoning the well" can be easily introduced by stealth and often go unnoticed to the untrained eye. I rather suspect this is what makes it so popular among the young who are looking for a quick "touche" rather than a clearly thought out, and accurate, rebuttal.
I've fallen victim to this so many times now that I've all-but given up trying to debate on some boards. I dare say I've even used the same technique myself in anger or frustration too.
It's a technique I've seen used to excellent effect to demolish long, deeply detailed arguments for biological evolution (and I'm sure the opposite applies too).
Top-posting, while frowned upon, more closely reflects how our written language has evolved makes this much more difficult.Clearly, inlining isn't going to go away, but it's going to be a long time before the language can fully adapt.
The problem is one of structure, like this:
A paragraph may form a thought or an idea - and it may be the whole argument.
But it rarely is.
I've used two short sentences as paragraphs here - purely for effect. Now I'm no expert at inlining fallacy, but let's have a go my paragraphs are in italics and the fake reply from blogger, AGITANT are below.
>A paragraph may form a thought or an idea - and it may be the whole argument.
AGITANT: Your argument clearly is.
>But it rarely is.
AGITANT: Yeah, well you say that. But just now you said the whole argument could be placed in a single paragraph.
BBC's formatting procedures preclude me from making this clearer, sadly, but I hope this will give everyone a bit of a pause for thought.
Jess quite correctly notes that a long reply is often unwieldy and difficult to read, but this should not be an excuse. While I've avoided inlining to show that we do have the tools to refer to part of an argument, it should be clear what I am alluding to.
The faster we communicate, the less time we have to think over our responses - this is the reason why slander (spoken insult) carries less legal penalty than a libel (a written one).
The best ideas in science are rarely summed up as simply as Einstein's E=MC^2. The single greatest discovery in biology (pre-DNA) was Darwin's Theory of evolution and Darwin himself produced six variations of the text; each one being a considerable read.
Can you imagine the debate had Darwin been able to post to the internet - heaven help us, on Twitter?
@DarwinC: life evolved from single-celled organisms into more complex ones.
@PalinS: DarwinC says life came from dirt. Rubbish. We walked with dinosaurs when God created the world 6000yrs back.
End of argument.
Is top-posting really so lazy or ignorant? Perhaps we should pause for thought once in a while.
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@David Lee #138
> Also, task systems will help people understand where their
> project is at and not need as many emails from people.
You obviously have little experience of the real world. If my company has the best task-based, self-reporting, collaborative system in the world I can guarantee my boss will still not use it and instead ask "can you just email me where we are?" "Just look at the system...." "I don't have time right now, just email me an update."
> You can't deny that vast numbers of people are turning away
> from email for systems like Facebook.
They're not "turning away" from it, just replacing some communication with a Facebook transaction instead. Social networks will indeed reduce the need for some emails, yes, as does going on a diet reduce the need for some food. Food isn't dying out though, and it isn't being replaced.
> I have already moved a couple of clients over to Google Docs and it
> means that my clients no longer need to worry about the system, it
> is much cheaper, better, faster and reliable
Better? Faster? Reliable? That what? And how? You can't just throw those words out without quantitation. Are you telling me that Google docs is faster than an application running on my local machine? Are you tell me that something relying on a browser and an internet connection to a third party server is more reliable than an app on my local machine? And "better"? Are you suggesting that a web-based interface can provide a "better" user experience than an application on my local machine? You don't know what you're talking about.
> Online services can often provide a better service, more
> frequent backups, higher availability, scalability and lower costs.
So now a third-party internet service provides better service, availability and more frequent back-ups than my own local network? If I want to back up every 5 minutes I can. If I can't access my local network how am I going to access the internet? By definition "my network" has to be more reliable than "my network plus your network". I give up.
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@Jess #140
> [Top posting] has many problems.
Usenet's hatred of top-posting is only because it is Outlook's default posting mode and as usual internet geeks hate anything that seems to have come from Microsoft for no reason other than it is Microsoft so they have to invent reasons why they say they hate it.
The problem with usenet is that if you top-post and the person doesn't like your arguments the person can instead attack the fact that you have top-posted to divert attention from the fact they are losing the argument. If you quote in-line instead then they accuse you of quote-mining to reach similar goals. No matter how you choose to communicate, someone will always draw attention toward how you have posted rather than what you are saying.
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I think the real problem with Usenet is it's full of self-opinionated idiots, Aidy - a bit like Twitter and Facebook really.
And David Lee - you asked (#138) why I was a bit harsh - I rather think Aidy has answered that question rather well at #142. Your lack of real-world experience is evident.
Might I assume you are a product of a Microsoft approved training course (i.e. an MCP) or some such? I'm willing to bet that Aidy isn't. I'm guess that we're both a good few years older too.
There's a reason why older people are revered in primitive societies - it's a pity our developed world has forgotten that.
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the only social networking site I regularly use is MSM. Twittter is fun for witty messages but the only followers I attract are commercial ones, usually those I am poking fun at. I belong to to face book groups which I have used for non profit business with results. I use email everyday for NC business occasionally fax since it is legally accept and there is some doubt about signed PMFs.
But you do have to go where the action is even if you don't network and I Facebook and other networking sited for people I search Facebook if want to know about people and if I was in business I would do so more (for details of applicants) of example.
I use aliases on all these site.
.
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I don't use social networks either, prefer just emails when I need to send anything, so I don't see the end of it for the forseeable anyway. Did try facebook and twitter but got bored of the continual postings which just seemed a bit pointless after a very short while, so finished with that and went back to emails, with occasional skype live chat, but even that I don't like using too much, it's easier to just send a message than have a live chat.
I reckon though that while the facebook/twitter type of thing will def continue email already looks like its adapting - I found a site called heyzaak which you can send video emails on, it calls them video messages but it's pretty much the same thing here. Might be the way ahead, will be for me for now.
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Facebook-like sites have a purpose and will evolve, I'm fairly sure of that. The frenzy surrounding them and the money they attract is what bothers me.
Twitter has received an eye-watering $160 million in venture capital.
And it hasn't got a proven business plan nor has it made any significant amount of money. Traditionally, this is bad business, but if it can survive, the monopoly created will be enormous. At least Google and Microsoft (which are guilty of the same things) produce some worthwhile products.
I want someone to explain to me what precisely Twitter does that can't be accomplished using conventional means - and often better.
"Twitter is a rich source of information" - This is demonstrably claptrap and the ASA would not allow such a claim.
"Twitter allows you to get instant updates" - As does RSS (depending on how it's set up. RSS is free, ad free, doesn't require signups and is accessible from most modern web broswers and free clients.)
"Twitter allows you to post updates to your friends." Hey, just like email!
All the good things about Twitter are already being done. I think a lot of the reason behind it's astronomic rise is due to the clarion call.
"Follow me on Twitter."
This simple four word statement is an imperative - without the exclamation mark because it's simply not required.
Imperatives very powerful messages - like a "call to action" (CTA) in marketing.
A typical CTA would say, "Stocks are limited, call now. If lines are busy, call later, but do call."
We feel - and this is a social programming - almost rude if we don't call. Twitter has condensed this into a short phrase and I'm fairly sure a lot of people have fallen for it.
It could be aruged that Twitter, being centralised, allows one to "follow" a blog more easily but that is something else that is easily overcome.
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Wow, the fear and insecurity of ageing sys admins on here is almost palpable.
Aside from regular assertions of greater experience, and a simply odd call back to the elders of "primitive societies" (#144), the arguments against this piece seem to amount to little more than, "the perfect local network and decades-old protocols I've been running for years are better than anything the internet can provide".
So much knowledge being shown off, yet no apparent recognition that the past four decades in technology have shown those that have failed to adapt become extinct.
So it's gratifying that so many people are saying they simply don't use these social networks that are rapidly eclipsing all other internet traffic. It means the process is working.
And it's gratifying that at #147, marcdraco is talking about Twitter as an exotic mystery. The first reliable sign someone doesn't understand Twitter, or social networking in general, is talking about its features. The second is talking about marketing.
Young people aren't moving to cloud-based communication because of marketing, and certainly not because they're stupid or inexperienced. It's because they have no vested interest and simply go to the tool that best suits their needs. That's not going to change. Which is why the current pack of technology billionaires are eye-wateringly young, and also the point of this piece.
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@RMorgan - the first sign of youthful arrogance is the assumption that you know more than people with experience because we appear to move more slowly. That was a warning in the children's tale, the tortoise and the hare.
Where did I refer to Twitter as anything other than another .COM akin to the likes of Lastminute? It's a one trick pony that has failed completely to live up to the promises made by its executive.
Twitter was financed at a time shortly before the latest boom and bust failed. When greedy bankers were looking for something risky to play with other people's money. A similar start-up today would have a more difficult job.
There are multiple alternatives to Twitter: as is the case with something so lightweight (it took 2 weeks to write with Ruby). The difference for all the others - and many offer better features - is they have failed to capture the public's imagination.
Young people are doing what they always have - following a popular trend; often ones to come out out America; Klackers, Skateboards, CB radio, keeping marine fish (Nemo, Dory)and so on.
Trends die off as quickly as they come. That's why they're called trends.
Really, RMorgan, you should study evolution more deeply - there are some interesting parallels here. You recognise that a technology that fails to adapt goes extinct, but you should also consider that a organism that evolves too quickly is likely to suffer the same fate should the environment alter.
Facebook has taken some hammerings from the very people who made it great recently and it was only a serious and well thought-out U-turn that saved it.
I popped into Usenet recently and its thriving with rapid-fire discussions - and signal to noise ratio that demonstrates how lame Twitter really is with it's circa 4% S/N.
The most striking difference is that most writers are more educated than the average Facebook/Twitter user.
I would completely agree that young people move easily with the ebb and flow - it's human nature to take the line of least resistance. But you fail to realise that they can move away as quickly as they come; and any trend can suffer that rapid demise. The popular social networks of a few years ago are testament to that.
The cloud that is so readily spoken of as a universal panacea has been here since the very first days of arpanet. It's not a new idea.
What Google, Microsoft and other interested behemoths call "The Cloud" are THEIR servers; and that's not really the same thing.
If you doubt me, consider this: fools rush in where the wise men fear to tread.
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@marcdraco - We could exchange competing aphorisms and fables all day, but I think we can both agree that the internet itself isn't some trend like CB radio - and perhaps also both agree that the developments of the internet also deserve to be taken seriously?
Vested interests with vast experience in a field, accustomed to one way of doing things, will always react with hostility to new developments. If I were in that position, with hundreds of millions of people embracing social networks and cloud services (across all ages, actually) I'd want to be very sure of myself before dismissing this as anything other than a real social change.
You're drawing all the wrong conclusions about Twitter. It was never a marketing or fashion fad. From its 'accidental" birth out of Odeo, right up to the present day, all of the investment has been chasing growth (servers and bandwidth basically) which has come about organically, entirely driven by the user base.
Twitter has raised at least $35m since the collapse of investor capital, and of course Facebook is actually seriously profitable (which is more than you can say for most 2009 businesses!)
You need to distinguish between the individual social media companies and the phenomena behind them. You're right: Twitter the company has no obvious monetising solution, no advantage on features or technology and hardly any user lock-in. Bad for Twitter, good for a free public. Facebook is in a somewhat better position.
But the lack of marketing or feature advantage is actually evidence that 'Twitter and Facebook-like" services are a genuine phenomenon which will only continue to grow and develop. Will these companies be around in five years? I have no idea. Will services like them, or evolutions thereof? Definitely.
Which, again, is what this piece is about. The evolution away from email, through social media is only going to continue. We're only into the second decade of mass internet use, it seems crazy to position oneself so starkly in favour of incumbent vested interests.
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E-mail may well become less popular than social networking in the future, but Email has it's place for the next generation (11% according to the stats in this article).
On another note, I wish people would stop referring to Facebook as a "success". It suggests that Facebook is more than just popular... IMO Facebook will only truly be successful once it turns a profit. Popular yes, successful... partially! I am sure I would be very popular if I stood on street corners giving away bars of chocolate...
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Whilst I believe that social networking sites are having a detrimental effect on the use of emails for social purposes, the business world appears to have been forgotten here. Social networking sites are used for social purposes, connecting friends and family around the world. Businesses use email on a daily basis to stay in contact with clients, therefore the use of email appears to be very much alive and will continue to survive as long as businesses use email as their key method of formal communication with clients. Sian. www.article10.com
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@Sian Clancy. No, business hasn't been forgotten, but it too will move away from email, just more slowly than consumers.
The nay-posters here seem to divide into two groups. Those who say things like this
"#124. I agree with others here. I'm 48, been in IT 12 years and am now an IT manager. When email came in it was the death knell on the postal services - but they are still here (sort of)...."
and those who claim that *email* is the form that's here to stay.
Isn't it absolutely clear that post is effectively dead for business communication (except for a few niches)? Isn't the next step just as obvious? The central point of this post is obviously right: that those who are accustomed to more sophisticated forms of text communication - linked, instant, social, rich media, cloud-based, one-to-many, privacy controlled or searchable, trended; and all the other small innovations - will be unwilling to give that up as things progress.
Yes, businesses still rely heavily on email (and proprietary ticketing systems), but that won't last. There were those who thought business would never dispense with print, you know? Some people still insist on faxes!
It's all good news though: we communicate in the written word more than we did a few decades ago and, even if email effectively dies out, one-to-one communications in paragraphs (letters basically) will always be with us. But only when that's the best form! Which, for most emails currently sent, it manifestly is not.
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@ListenToMe
Facebook became "self-sustaining and cash positive" last year, and turned over 800 million dollars. Successful enough for you?
But I don't agree with your suggestion: this is about new forms of communication. So Twitter (which, who knows, may never make a profit) is successful insofar as it's *used*, huge and growing.
Otherwise you'd have to say email isn't a success because there's no "Email, Inc" making a profit every time I send an email.
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@marcdraco - Arguing that Usenet is good because its users are "better educated" is like saying exchanging Bridge problems in Klingon is good for the same reason.
We're talking about communications. Tech-geeky barriers to entry are a BAD THING.
Let's face it: Usenet has failed (or possibly died out) as a medium because normal people don't use it to communicate. It's basically good for two things: geeky networking and SSL binaries. It's no wonder the old guard of IT love it, it's a vestigial growth of the internet, forever frozen in 1997, before the actual humans arrived...
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@rmorgan, I really wish we were having this discussion in a more popular forum; many less polite netizens (or whatever they like to call themselves) would tear you to pieces over a remarks like that.
Usenet hasn't died - it's flourishing - albeit probably because of the amount of illegal software and movies that can be posted there. Yet there remain healthy debates on all manner of topics. Merely saying that its wedged in 1997 unmasks your youthful intolerance. You will grow out of that, I can promise you.
Drawing a comparison between speaking Klingon and Usenet is equally fallacious.
Usenet is not welcoming of new users, I'd have to agree, but it's big and continues to evolve. Several companies are now offering high-availability clients to make it easier than ever to cope with PAR/PAR2 files and weird encoding strategies.
Usenet exists in the cloud. It has no single master and like a shark it continues unaltered but dismiss it at your peril. The wheel has barely evolved in hundreds of years, but I don't see it being replaced any time soon.
Beware of confusing old with extinct.
People will learn what they need to get what they want. They learnt Gnutella when they wanted to steal movies, they learnt Bittorrent to do the same thing: faster and I expect they will move to Usenet once they is sufficient profit in companies to offer simpler clients. Indeed, this is already happening and will probably continue to do so until the movie moguls find a way to track them there too.
Twitter is bad for business.
Not Twitter's business - regardless of whatever capital it has, some day, that honeypot is going to run dry. Venture capitalists want returns, big ones and if they don't get them they can get pretty aggressive. Twitter Inc.'s bottomless pockets to invest in new infrastructure demonstrate that it's a failure in a number of areas.
Anyone with a modicum of business experience can see that.
Twitter relies on its userbase - and, let's face it, lying by cherry-picking statistics over how many users it has. Should that plug get pulled and just a few of those servers get scaled back, the users will leave it faster than you can say tweet off.
Without that "free" money, it's bankrupt. Few businesses are lucky to get any startup capital. If Twitter fails spectacularly, the kids will move on.
Behind the scenes venture capitalists will start to get jittery and promising - profitable - technology ventures will be lost to the sands of time. We will never know what has already been lost to the first dot-com boom and bust.
I saw this happen the first time around and those who fail to learn by history's mistakes are doomed to repeat them.
This is the real danger.
Twitter and its ilk are greedy children who will consume until they explode - Roald Dahl made that lesson funny. Greedy bankers are slow to realise when they are being taken as Nick Leeson demonstrated by fiddling the stock exchange and bringing an entire bank to its knees.
Biz Stone predicted Twitter would be well into profit by now... bullish foolish and wrong; but that's precisely what the bankers believed when they handed them that fat wad of cash. It doesn't matter that Twitter raised a huge wad recently - it already had a vapourware business to show with lots of lovely figures and high-profile people using it.
In time, the shylock will come for his pound of flesh.
Comparing Twitter to email is fallacious too.
Like Usenet, email lives in the cloud; that's why it's free (even though it isn't). We all pay toward this cloud as part of our net subscriptions. It's micro payments at a quantum level.
Twitter is not in the cloud - to keep it simple, it's a unified server: albeit a very large one. Someone, somewhere has to pay for it and with every user and every bot that posts more and more inane twaddle, it's consuming money. Not much money, but lots of little things make big ones; atoms are very small, but put enough of them together and you have an awfully large universe.
Someone, somewhere has to pay.
If the users are anything to go by, very few will.
Facebook is a different business model - but, for all it's popular right now, it could fail very quickly: it skidded quite badly recently during the privacy debacle.
Crucially, both these sites exist very much in the here and now; and are almost part of this 18-30 generation; although I know the demographic is wider than that. And in time, this generation will move on to something more fulfilling and all the social networks will have to evolve to follow them or die a sudden death.
I can remember when we were told we would have free electricity and so much leisure time that we wouldn't know what to do with it. In reality, we're working harder than ever and energy costs a fortune.
I can remember being told the fax machine would replace the letter; both are still hanging on. IBM, I think, boasted the world's first paperless office - and went back to paper within months.
SMTP & UUCP email are almost unique in being completely within the Internet cloud. They have no masters and bow to no one. As fundamental to to the internet as atoms are to us (we could equate the UDP and TCP to quanta in this allusion).
This is what makes them unique and untouchable even if the transmission protocols change from IPv4 to IPV6 and beyond, while there's an internet, they will still work.
This is the real answer. No matter how you cut it, no one owns the internet and no one owns "basic" email; it's the lowest common denominator; the very water on which all life relies; and this in and of itself ensures its survival.
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Rubbish. Statements by people with vested interests should be given little weight.
Business email won't be replaced by Facebook. Customer to business email etc etc. And when my wife writes to our ids it's by email - she only has a Facebook account to read theirs and see what they're really doing.
I also see an article claiming that the Nigerian football team's ban was overturned due to a Facebook campaign - also rubbish. They were threatened by FIFA with funding cuts and... anyone who knows anything about politics should know that this was never intended to stand. This is what tinpot countries do - they keep people's minds on things other than their miserable plight, like football. And when it fails they engineer more drama as was dome with the football ban.
However, they know that 2 years in the wilderness will do nothing to improve their team so the big wig milks the free popularity boost from caning the poor footballers and then is seen as merciful to the team and the country when he relents.
Pretending that Facebook had anything to do with it is just silly.
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I believe it will be the other way around. Email will remain and Facebook and Twitter will diminish. There is nothing new about social networks. They have been around since the start in one form or another. Remember the Multi-User Dungeons? Remember AppleLink? Chats go way back. There has always been social networking on the Internet.
I cancelled my Facebook account for privacy issues. I have a Twitter account but use it seldom. I work with young people. Many use text messaging. Few use Facebook or Twitter. Text messaging is in its infancy. As cell phones evolve and become more sophisticated, I believe texting and email will look more similar. I think young people text because that is what is available on their mobile communication device, but many would prefer easily usable mobile email.
"If you want to know what you'll be doing tomorrow, look at what teens are doing today." If this is the case, Facebook is a thing of the past.
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Try signing up to Facebook or Twitter without an email account.
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I really hope email will continue. Its available from lots of suppliers, it allows everyone to contact everyone.
Do we really want to be cornered into having to use the services of one or two huge wealthy corporations?
Keep the web open and free. We will all be happier that way in the long run.
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@136 ... *amused*
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Let’s face it most teens talk rubbish and Facebook is perfect for mindless chit chat.
I’m 25, the majority of people I know who regularly use Facebook are the mindless idiots, and they talk rubbish all day. They tend to be underachievers and lacking in substance.
There will always be millions of people who will refuse to use social networking.
My mate almost dropped his girlfriend when he realised she was talking crap all-day on Facebook, he now sees her as some kind of mindless bimbo.
For serious people email will be king for the foreseeable future because of its reliability and the belief that if it’s sent by email it has some weight.
There’s also the whole issue of interoperability which could also stop this ever happening.
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Has the penny dropped yet?
The BBC have started pumping over the past few weeks at every opportunity,"you can read more about this subject on our twitter/page" etc!
They are not daft! [bigoted maybe] it clears their servers of junk,interesting how much of the license payer's tax is going into it?
Oh...and email is certainly not going to expire now or in the future.
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I find Email a very usefull tool as part of my work I had to do a whole lot of translation and depending on format the text can be further modified . The ability to send high quality photos and designs makes it a supreme piece of kit .Alright the tech is different but FAX showed what could be done but very poor by comparison There needs to be something farmore superior to replace Email
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Email's death? Nah! Not anytime soon.
> But for Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of the
> world's biggest social network, it's a dying means of
> communication.
Yeah, well, maybe this is her opinion. I bet when she asks her hubby to shop for groceries it goes by email, not on her Facebook! Similarly, if she communicates to her kids to stop smoking or drinking - this goes by email, not Facebook! Facebook's security and privacy is not sufficient :-) ...
Email's obituary by Sheryl Sandberg is vastly premature!
Chagri Lama
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Come on Maggie, you can do better than this.
Even if you are implicitly not agreeing with Ms Sandberg's ridiculous argument, you could put forward a more interesting response than quoting a boring piece of research.
To sum up what most have already said on here, the strengths of email are completely different to those of social networking and all that has happened is the further segmentation of online communication to where it is best suited. If I want to tell 10 of my friends who are on twitter that I think they should take a look at the new BBC website layout, I wouldn't send them all a one line email - same as I wouldn't write a long critique of a colleague's paper on facebook, mostly because it is not for public consumption but it would also be unwieldy to read.
It is horses for courses. All that has happened over the last few years (happily) is that there are more courses to choose from.
This blog post might as well have been called 'the end of apple juice?' and gone something like:
Speaking at the Neilsen Consumer 360 conference in Las Vegas, The Man from Del Monte claims: "If you want to know what you'll be doing tomorrow, look at what teens are doing today."
"The Man", who you can watch on YouTube, claims that only 11% of teens drink apple juice, preferring orange juice and fizzy cola.
Completely meaningless drivel.
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Wake up Maggie, I think I've got something to say to you...
What happend when I post on someone's facebook wall? Facebook sends an email to the wall owner and if anyone else comments on what I posted it emails me too.
Seems to be increasing the number of emails to me...
I recon my email to social networking ratio is 50 to 1 in favour of email. The content of email is different to what you post online so how can one replace the other?
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Noboby seems to post there age. Not only is email dead so is the cell phone! Oh yeah 38
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