According to the Wall Street Journal, “Email has had a good run as king of communications. But its reign is over.”
Wow. Should I alert my email marketing friends? Obviously I need to jump ship before I get too far down this road into this dying medium.
Now I know I shouldn’t get too worked up about this article, because folks have been trying to declare that email is dead for years. First, it was blogs. Then it was RSS feeds. Now it’s Twitter and Facebook. What do all of these communication venues have in common? Two things:
1. They’re wrong! (Hence the “Dewey Defeats Truman” headline)
2. You need an email address to use them!
(okay, maybe not RSS, but still, the argument is valid)
Vascellaro pontificates:
We all still use email, of course. But email was better suited to the way we used to use the Internet–logging off and on, checking our messages in bursts. Now, we are always connected, whether we are sitting at a desk or on a mobile phone. The always-on connection, in turn, has created a host of new ways to communicate that are much faster than email, and more fun.
There is one part of that hypothesis that’s correct: A host of new ways to communicate. In some cases, yes, faster.
But let’s face it, NO ONE is always connected. I have an iPod Touch, which allows me to check email, Twitter, and Facebook whenever I please. But I check those three things, respond as necessary, and shut off. Who is constantly connected ever? I’ll tell you who:
People on the phone. People meeting face-to-face. That’s connection.
Let’s examine how I use Twitter. I can imagine I’m not alone here: If I need a quick answer to something or am (sometimes, admittedly) grasping at straws, I tweet a question. If I get a response from the company or individual, I try to follow them. If it keeps going, it gets to DM level. Then when it gets substantive, it EVOLVES into an email string.
Notice I capitalized evolve. Twitter is quick, email is substantive. I consider email my “paper trail.” Whenever people ask me for things at work, I ask them to email it to me so I have a paper trail. It’s nice to have. And I know I’m not the only one who feels this way.
Now ordinarily, I wouldn’t be so out there with my displeasure about this, but there are two things that rile me up here:
1. This isn’t like the newspapers ignoring blogs and digital media and thus dying out (because their subscriber base is getting old and dying). Email is a growing media–maybe less percentage-wise than Twitter and Facebook, but that’s because the general email-having audience is HUMONGOUS compared to the shiny objects that are social media venues. Social media is in its infancy. Email is an established, viable, growing medium.
2. It’s in the Wall Street Journal. This is supposed to be a periodical that is on top of business topics. Clearly, given the near Twitter tutorial in a portion of the article, they aren’t on top of what’s going on. Twitter and Facebook have been around and popular for over two years–NOW the WSJ is giving the tutorial on “what’s new”? Seems odd to me.
What are your thoughts? I’ll compile any arguments for or rebuttals and place the links below.
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A great counterargument for the WSJ piece is “Why Email Still Rules” by Jordan Cohen (my marketing brother from another mother). In his rebuttal, Cohen claims that email is entering its Renaissance Age, with social networking and smart phone driving more email usage as well as email getting a face lift with more capabilities. It’s a solid rebuttal; you should check it out.
UPDATE:
Mark Brownlow has a solid opinion/rebuttal on the subject, too: “Three Years On and Still Going Strong”
UPDATE (10-16):
Laura Atkins has a great rebuttal as well: “Email is dead…”
Anna Maria Virzi had this to say on ClickZ about “Why Facebook and Twitter Won’t Kill Email”
(As mentioned on the Bronto Blog’s “Best of the Blogosphere”)
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I think the real irony is they themselves don’t really know how to use Twitter. The WSJ has 97K followers and 65 following, most of which are other “one-way” WSJ Twitter accounts. Their “opinions” account has no followers. It is basically all a RSS feed, not a 2-way conversation, as SM is supposed to be.
http://twitter.com/WSJ
A classic example of “Do as I say, not as I do,” would you say? Yeah, I’m not sure why big companies would ignore the two-way interaction afforded them through social networking. I get my best customer service through Twitter, because as I wrote in the post, it often leads to email interaction and phone calls.
A classic example of “Do as I say, not as I do,” would you say?
I wouldn’t expect anything less from Wall Street.
Great post Scott, and thanks for the mention.
Great point on the value of the paper trail — esp now that all major email programs are so easy to keyword search through… I get so many critical links, passwords, articles etc sent to me via IM and then a few months later… doh!!
Excited to join forces with you again for our next collaboration, “O, Brother from Another Mother, Where Art Thou?” followed by the WSJ-produced vehicle, “No Country for Old Email Marketers”…
Nice piece Scott, coupled with Jordan’s post it drives home how truly baseless and uninspired the WSJ’s article is.
Social media, as we know it, is certainly NOT the email killer. In fact it’s the medium that unifies social media. However, I am interested to see if/how Google Wave will effect email behavior or will Wave simply go the way of Google Chrome.
SIDE NOTE: I see too that the WSJ article is sponsored by Constant Contact, classic.
@Scott, excellent point–and love the Constant Contact dig. Justin Premick made the comment on the Email Marketers Club today (www.emailmarketersclub.com) that he thinks the article is pure link bait. I tend to agree with him, given the terrible premise of the article. Would you agree?
@Jordan, I’ve spent the last two hours trying to think of other awesome alternate “Cohen Brothers” titles, but can’t seem to find a decent match with Millers Crossing or The Big Lebowski.
Also, I’m glad I’m not the only one that thinks of email as a paper trail.
Good article. I think we are at the beginning of social media adoption as you stated. Email will continue to be more established communication method. However I don’t like the paper trail you mentioned in your piece. I used to do this but then it clogs up my email box and becomes more work. I hate to say it but I prefer more team meetings where work is discussed and resources get their assignments. A common set of notes should be the email message to the team versus the many single requests I get.
Brian,
First off, thanks for the comment. I agree with you on the common set of notes as an email to the team. It definitely cuts down on the clog.
The paper trail works best for me because I have a lot of people who walk up to me and make a request when I’m usually in the middle of four other projects. The email reminds me to add the request to my to-do list and also provides a reminder on the needs of the request. I have enough on my to-do list that I can’t go into too many details on the list itself.
I agree that it becomes a major clog, but in my opinion it’s mostly due to Outlook’s inability to thread together messages (a la Gmail). I love Gmail’s approach to email. I wish the major business email providers would follow suit.