Comments on: Kids say e-mail is, like, soooo dead

The future of e-mail might be found on the pages of MySpace and Facebook, if teen habits are any indicator.

[umbrae]

Sure...

They have time to hit all these different sites now, but as they get older and have less free time, they will appreciate having ONE source for contact. Not to mention, you have to worry about privacy and security related to several source.

I will keep my encrypted email, thank you very much.

[mahurshi]

haha.. i like your logic!

.

[bhushan bhaagii]

C-NET's TALKBACK is sooo dead

Good point about having less free time, Umbrae, but one that C-Net does not appreciate. This one story has 72 comments posted by readers, and C-Net, like all monopolists, insists that you click SEVENTY-TWO times, if you want to read ALL comments. They want to force you to view their ad panels on each comment,never mind, if one TALKBACK session takes you seventy-two minutes.
You look at the posts in some of the other stories, and I bet you wouldn't get through even in 2 hours.
I had referred to this in an earlier post on this forum. Wonder if the message will get through the extra-thick heads of the C-Net editors. Will they get around to posting all comments on one page, as they used to do earlier?

[Nazmul Hassan]

Email isn't going to go died

Well, nowadays, email'ng is turning into instant messaging, with smart phones telling you have a new email in real time.
i mean, being a kid myself, i use email, for official usage, not for social use. theres instant messaging and facebook for social uses.

[beubanks7507]

I kind of see their point

Being in their age group I see their point but, I still think that they
are under estimating the functionality of e-mail. There are lots of
things you can do with an e-mail that you can't easily do with and
IM, text message, or a Facebook message. I use e-mail all of the
time but it is mostly for school and work.

[bluemist9999]

MySpace seems to be a broadcast system

From the little experience I have with MySpace, it looks like a poster board where you can post things about yourself.

Granted, there are Blog posts and Bulletins, but I don't think group broadcasts are the same as one-on-one communication, no matter how public you want your life to be.

So, I'd say MySpace is best suited to personal updates, but not really for in depth one-on-one communication.

That is unless the style of the future is a large number of superficial acquaintainces---which it may very well be.

[maverick_nick]

Not Quite

Sure you can post blogs, comments, and bulletins on MySpace, but you can also send private messages.

Flexability is limited where you can't send attachments, and you have to open a person's profile before sending a message, and some profiles can take a while to load.

[adasha76]

one obstacle

I think the general idea has some merit, but one thing that might get in the way is usernames: with email I can have my own domain and basically have whatever address I want in that domain. With social networks you're basically up against all the early adopters who've taken all the good names so your stuck with myName375 or something else equally un-memorable, and for every network you're on you'll probably end up with different names each time

[Arrgster]

It's even true for me

I'm 39 and I use my personal gmail account less and less. I talk to my fiends via myspace or text message. I use the gmail account for things like registration to websites or month billing statements from utilities or credit cards.

[wiarumas]

I call BS

Wait a second... don't you have to have a email address to sign up for MySpace and Facebook?

Sorry, I would never listen to a teenager about the future of technology. Although they might use social networking sites more than email at a younger age, that doesn't reflect anything about the future of the email industry. Trust me, it is here to stay... at least for a few more dozen years.

I personally never used email either as a teen. The later years of my teenage life, I used instant messangers. That had no affect on the demand for email in my adult life. I grew up, and I'm expecting these kids to drop the whole personalized site to become professionals someday. I'm sure a 30 year old with a page called "Butterfly Tears of Depression" is not going to be respected in the business world. They would have to make a change. If not, then God have mercy on their souls.

Let's compare some of the key reasons why email is here to stay compared to Myspace. First off, Myspace is just as bad with spam as email and is going to get worse. I get emails from bands, fake people, and advertisements when my friend's account is hacked. Oh, and the phishing on Myspace is ridiculous... people fail to learn. Also, MySpace email has no connection to outside sites. You cannot sign up for other sites, newsletters, and other important sites... lets just use Paypal as a great example.

I'm not saying MySpace is for kids, but in the end, the article that was written is true only if you live in a MySpace bubble... visiting strictly MySpace and no other sites. Unfortunately, that is not reality (and thank God). Email is here to stay.

[nytstryk]

100% Agree.

Agreed, you have to have an email address to register for just about anything on line today. And yeah, try registering with Facebook, MySpace or LinkedIn without one...It won't happen. I also recall what happened the last time everyone jumped on the bandwagon and followed what "teens" were leveraging in droves...It was called the Internet Bust of 2000. Yeah, let's have another repeat of that period again. Sorry, that time period painfully made people realized that there is no substitute for experience.

[themortalgod]

RE: I call BS

Ok first, why wouldnt you listen to a teen about the future of technology? THEY ARE the future of technology, now that said I agree that email isnt going away in the near future but to assume its going to be around for a few dozen more years is probably innacurate, I foresee it having evolved into something else by then without a doubt, remember it has only been mainstream for a 15-20 years or so and its already starting to change radically.

As for 30 year olds with social networking accounts, that is becoming more and more of a reality, millions of unprofessional level adults visit these sites daily from their work daily (much to the chagrin of their employers) furthermore, previously immature pastimes are becoming more and more part of the adult lifestyle, video games, networking sites, forums, blogs, SMS and IM ALL started as technology almost exclusively used by TEENS and now have evolved into things regularly contributed to and enjoyed by a large and diverse group of internet users ranging from virtually any age, sex and race.

Oh and clearly you didn't read the article too well if you think it was written from the point of view of a myspace bubble. It was written from the point of view of a teen bubble who uses most are all of the new age communication tools, and who will also become and shape what the internet will become.

[ismaelc]

amen

i agree. kids today are sooooo getting stupid they think the whole world revolves in myspace or whatever

[kakphoto]

I do agree and can go further here

Myspace is not really a kids site. It was populated by "***** adults" long before kids found it. Its just that it exploded before The owners could control things.

[gnutux]

It isn't much BS

Fine, I agree that you need an email address to sign up for both.

However, it's only a percentage of people that get their accounts cracked or constantly get friend requests or "fake people". People who know Internet Etiquette would already know NOT to accept everyone on the Internet who gave you a friend request and etc.

Then again, MySpace is by far the worst of all social networking sites on security and website design. This is also why other networking sites like Facebook, Orkut, Friendster and HI5 are rising to the top again after that sudden surge of users who went over to MySpace.

gnutux

[Stufiano]

That was ...

What a lofty post illustrating your lack of READING THE ARTICLE!
It sounds as if you stop reading a paragraph in...

In the article, the kids said email would be for BUSINESS.
Meaning "official" communications with schools, or businesses
and such. Furthermore, they don't use just myspace, that was
the MAIN POINT of the article!

They use multiple methods: each tool has a different purpose,
for a different set of people.

Personally, I'm a 21 year college student, not exactly in that age
group, which apparently including 18 year olds, so they not
irrelevant] I have over 30 email addresses, I only check 3, the
rest are for sign ups. Please, don't assume just because one has
an email address, that they actually use it!

Now that sites are using cell phones to sign up, they'll be even
less use for a email address.

I agree with them, emails are becoming more of the formal
communication.

[maverick_nick]

Some foresight

You've got to remember that we don't live in a binary world, so things like e-mail isn't necessarily dead or alive. Technology will evolve and with it communication. Take the telephone for example. I hate picking up the phone, so I'd rather send an email or text message than speak to someone on the phone, but that doesn't mean that the phone is dying.

Technically the social site's messaging service is a form of electronic mail. Just look at it as fetching your mail from a different mailbox.

As a software developer and active user of several forms of communication, I like to keep up with what's going on, and also try and predict the future. One of the things that I see happening in the future is standard API implementation, that will enable a single application to get your messages from the various networks, and basically bring everything into a single communication hub making it far easier to manage you communication on multiple platforms.

Basically instead of logging on to Facebook to get those messages, then MySpace to get those messages, I can get onto a single third party site which will fetch my messages from Facebook and MySpace. This is much like RSS feeds that's already implemented for blogs, and news articles.

[igmcdonald]

Isn't that what we call EMAIL

Hello signing into another site to get your email from all your other sites...
that sounds like todays modern email to me, minus the social network feeds.
I am sure someone like gmail can get these add ons or plugins to pull that kind of stuff in.
Adults dont have that much time on their hands to go to all the sites.
we got work/wife/kids.

[themortalgod]

Email isn't quite ready to croak

Personally, I don't so much see email dying as I do see it merging with instant messaging and text messages, it already is becoming more and more like an instant messaging platform anyway, but email is still crucial for personal one on one communication and more importantly business transactions.

Every time you purchase something online, the company you purchased it from sends your receipt to your email, I find it quite unlikely that it will change anytime soon and since the vast majority of internet users use the internet for purchasing of goods and services, I find it quite unlikely that a transaction medium such as email would decline into nothing.

That said, however, the face of email seems to be evolving and becoming more of a file storage system then a communication tool, when we need to communicate directly in a social environment we are much more apt to try said communication via other means such as social networks, instant messaging, text messaging or even voice messaging rather then open our email, and thus email evolves into something that stores and archives personal data for us, transactions, business arrangements and more formal documents will all still be routed to our email. Thus email begins to evolve into what actual mail has become today, simply a medium to send and receive newsletters, legal documents and spam.

Furthermore, as mentioned in the email above, things need to become universalized with the other communication tools, right now if you have facebook and someone else has myspace you cannot communicate directly via these two communication mediums, additionally, if you have AIM and they have MSN you are in a similar predicament, but with email there is a standardized medium, one can send an email with hotmail to someone using email from AOL or their own domain or gmail or any form of email, there are no restrictions beyond spam filtering, this allows for universal digital communication between anyone with email service. This format, however, will soon be more universally adopted though as it is already being seen in text messaging and also with tools such as meebo, trillian and adium that help you communicate over multiple IM services almost seamlessly.

Email is changing no one can argue that, but it's death is not imminent in the least for it is the most universal and wide spread communication tool available to the online community at this time.

[wiarumas]

And you are forgetting...

You are also forgetting the fact that not everyone has MySpace, nor wants to. As people grow up, they will eventually drop their MySpace pages or pay very little attention to it.

And the fact that MySpace cannot send or recieve outside of MySpace is it's blessing and curse. How are you going to email your friend on Facebook from MySpace? Or your professional friend who uses Gmail since he realizes that companies look at MySpace before hiring...

[dbthree]

Quite Presumptious

I feel its quite presumptious to believe that 'as people grow up they'll drop their social networking profiles'.

Truth be told, I use Facebook (and I suppose MySpace, too) now more than ever since I've left college and moved far away from the region I went to school in. It's the best way to stay in contact with people, simply put.

I agree with the point that perhaps the death of email isn't exactly a sure thing, but I think it'll serve a purpose through other channels.

Email's biggest issue is spam and while spam populates MySpace and is starting to be a growing problem on Facebook (almost entirely isolated to the marketplace app), there still is no true way of sorting out the authentic messages from the crap and fortunately, a Facebook inbox on my social networking profile does a better job than my Gmail. That's (one of many reasons) why people like messaging over it.

[phillynets]

This is all true UNTIL...

So e-mail is dying because of SPAM...

So the future of SPAM and guerilla marketing will be through MySpace and Facebook? Grrrreat.

I have a great idea for a new technology that's going to really add value to the user experience. Imagine: We add additional content layers to messaging and then pretend that this is more efficient and engaging.

No wonder ADD is so prevelant. We move from one or two e-mail addressed to three or four "social networking" sites that let you do whatever the hell that they let you do... My Homepage tells me I have an e-mail without having to do anything; these kids have to log into a dozen sites to find out their Vaigra needs have been fulfilled.

There's a reason we don't hand our economy over to kids. This fad has staying power but it is very early in its evolutionary development.

MySpace sucks, by the way.

[hormesis]

Right

Email is not "dying" because of spam, and you obviously don't know enough about social networking, instant messaging, forums, newsgroups, and all the other brands of socializing to think that advertising hasn't reached them. Any new method of communication will inevitably be dominated with advertisements. That's just how marketing works. TV and radio (Hmm, radio and TV; another situation similar to this) have their commercials, magazines have their pages upon pages of ads, postal mail has its loads of catalogs and "junk mail," movies have their product placement, and highways have their billboards (If you know what I mean).

And of course, social networking is in no way taking over email. It's just a separate method that is becoming increasingly popular.

[Renegade Knight]

Kid's are stupid about things like staying in touch.

They are willing to create 429 different accounts to keep up with 429 different friends. Meanwhile those same friends are doing the same thing. But email, is one account to contact them all.

It's just another variation of "you can talk to your friend at his house, but it's more fun to do it at the mall, movies, parties and so on".

Myspace and the like are just the internet version of the hang out spots. Nothing more. That there is a hot spot to hang out doesn't change, but which spot it is does. Same with the internet.

[tim7891]

lol

sorry, but you are an idiot. I most of us college "kids" don't have 429 different accounts we have 2 at the most and typically only use one.
MySpace: if you are still in high school; and FaceBook: for college
I and practically all of my friends only use Facebook and it's much easier than email because you can post music, articles, messages, and pictures for all of your friends to see without sending out several individual emails. What would be stupid, would be to send out 429 emails when you want to share your pictures or tell your friends some news.

[hormesis]

Hypocritical as well..

I really detest these "Oh, those teenagers and their immature ways" arguments. What's the difference between teenagers socializing at the mall and adults (physically, perhaps, but not necessarily mentally) gathering at a bar to share a drink and watch a sporting event? Bars are more "sophisticated?" Right. Have fun getting wasted. And before you get on the defensive and say, "Well, I don't go to bars, so don't generalize us adults," consider the same flaw in applying a similar blanket statement about teenagers.

[Thomas, David]

A Little Irresponsible

I think the author has just found a united chorus voicing
"WHAT?!" ... and these voices seldom agree on anything.

I do
not know what term they apply to a story like this in journalism,
but the jist of it is you are trying to make a story where
there is none. In addition, unfortunately for you, it illustrates a
certain lack of understanding about communications, protocols,
and their origins, otherwise you would not have written the
story, at least not with the idea that email is dead</
i>.

You story really should have focused on the people who
rely heavily on third party sources for their personal
communications. I wish you had thoght about that. It would
have shown some basic understanding, and you could've actually
helped a few people.

[Bavati]

...it isn't about the technology

It strikes me that many of the respondents to the story appear to have focused on the technology / channel of communication. To my mind, the interesting point being made is that 'kids' simply aren't wed to a single, well-established channel in the same way that other generations of users have been. To the kids who's views were expressed in the piece it isn't the mode that matters but the act of communication, regardless of the channel.

[indieseattle]

Multiple Talk Points not New

You're right...there are so many ways to communicate today, but that's not necessarily a new or kid thing. Before social networks, there was in-person (what a concept!), snail mail, phone, voice mail, email and IM (did I leave any out?). Granted not as many choices, but still a decision about who you wanted to communicate with, how fast, the content, etc. Think about the difference between text messaging -- brief, but instantaneous -- and a social network -- text, pictures, everything, but not necessarily immediate unless someone's logged in. Each has their purpose. I remember using voice mail as a way to actually not have to talk to someone. Kind of reminds me of how text messaging is used now.

[Dr_Zinj]

KIDS ARE LIKE, SOOOO BRAIN DEAD ABOUT E-MAIL

1. You need an e-mail address just to be able to get MySpace or FaceBook accounts.

2. Most of these teenagers are not funding their own accounts and internet access, nor buying their own computers. Basing business decisions on a demographic with zero income is about the dumbest thing you can do.

3. Talking trash with your buddies doesn't constitute business use. It's fine for saying "Hi" and "Let's go hang out at the beach tomorrow", but that's about all. Inability to attach files, and poor formatting for printout preclude it's serious use for transmitting and printing formal documents.

4. Security? What's that?

5. How many businesses have blocked access to MySpace and Facebook as a means of INCREASING employee productivity?

6. My experience is that the greatest users of MySpace and FaceBook are the least producers in this country. The young people who are actually learning and doing spend less than 30 minutes a day chatting and texting each other.

7. It is a proven FACT that the more interruptions a person has by continually answering their cell phone, beeper, blackberry, e-mail, etc, the less productive they will be, period. And that it takes 10 to 15 minutes from each interruption to get fully back up to speed on what they were doing prior to the interruption.

[zboot]

And your excuse is. . .you are just brain dead about everything

1) Interesting. . . so your argument is that by myspace or facebook requiring an email account to get an account on their system, email will never die. . hahaha. Good, you've found the holy grail of email, to survive as a device that lets us create accounts someplace else that we then use to communicate. Genius!

2) Business decisions on a demographic with zero income is the dumbest thing you can do. Wow, you know, I understand what you're saying but I've never figured out how Toys'R'Us makes so much money. . .or Nike managed to shoe so many kids who qualified for reduced price school lunches. Or how kids w/o jobs in college drive brand new BMWs. . I suppose they stole all those things. . .its not like these kids manage are able to get their parents (with ALL that INCOME) to BUY it FOR them. However it is that Toys'R'Us, RockStar Games, Sony, or any number of companies make money is beyond me. Again. . .Genius!

3) Funny. . . the article said that EMAIL was being relegated solely to business use. . .and social networking sites were being used for . . .social stuff. I guess what you call "talking trash". Obviously, you've never had a facebook or myspace account. Let me let you in on a pretty BIG secret. . .its easy to share video, images, etc through them. What about word documents you say? Funny. . .the only time I share non media related files with people is when it is WORK or SCHOOL related. . . and who emails 200MB videos? Is that even possible? I guess for you it is. . because you are a Genius!

4) Security. . . umm. . .how is your email any more secure than my facebook account? Obviously, it takes a Genius to explain this one to me.

5) See number 3. . . or reread the article. When you are at work. . . you typically are not supposed to be socializing. . .thus, who'd be on a SOCIAL NETWORKING site? Some Genius that's who!

6) Really. . that's the biggest load of bulls**t I've seen in your post so far. First, you have no idea what actually can be done with facebook/myspace. You obviously are far disconnected from the "youth" demographic. Now you claim to have extensive personal experience to the point that it allows you to make sweeping generalizations about the majority of facebook/myspace users. Cool, then you won't mind me saying, in my experience, you are an idiot. Genius huh?

7) Your point? Who cares how productive you are after work. Stop wasting your time on the phone, email, cnet, and get back to it Genius!

[faristhaa]

re think some of that

ok first of all you #1 yes you do and that's to protect your account so that you know your password and can get into the site w/o remembering a name.

#2 So what if it's not there computer! what does that have to do with them emailing or using a network??

#3 this says in the article that they DON'T use it for business accounts b/c you can't do those things but I have full convo's on facebook and myyearbook.com and the trash talking come on people trash talk in real life too but that doesn't mean n e thing you can trash talk in your email account too!!

#4 what do you even mean by this point?? If you use a network and post things on the "walls" then yeah people are going to read them and what you say can be used against you.

#5 a lot and that's b/c you don't need to be on there while working! once again read they DON'T use it for BUISNESSES!

#6 Of course you get more done your not concentrating on talking you your friends, are u a lonely senile person?? b/c it seems like it by this statement. I like to know how my friends lives are going plus we are in HIGH SCHOOL and college we aren't in the business world yet so what do you expect? use your brain of course we can adapt and use email too for work and then come home, relax and talk to our friends who we may never see otherwise!

#7 well isn't that nice if they are doing something important they will not answer or something, so why does it matter how long you take to get it done if you get it done?? people want lives you know. another thing is that of course it will take time to get back up to speed it always does for anything you do.

overall you where just senial i mean really what this could do for us in the future could be really great and if expanded the right way can get more done b/c you will be more available so your business might go smoother and you seem more able to do things with less stress b/c you can contact someone and know they will get eh message quickly if you can't talk on the phone directly, were as you don't know how often someone will check there email and may not get something for days too late.

[godseyesore]

Brain dead

Spot-on post! Thanks Dr_Z.

[ReVeLaTeD]

Some of you missed the point.

The point isn't that email should "go away", but rather that it shouldn't be used as the primary means of communication.

Which, of course, I disagree with.

I really can't stand these social networking sites as the primary means of communication. Email maintains a small footprint; just about every device out there supports it now and it's fast. What's more, the emails are small, so even the slowest of dialup can receive the majority of text based emails without issue.

These networking sites, on the other hand, require that you actually surf out to them, wait for them to load, log in, then navigate to your box. You're limited on how you can format your response, can't save emails, and are subject to outrageously strict space limits, the likes of which were prevalent before Gmail (i.e. years ago). Additionally, you see kids 13-17 talking about their sexual preferences, including giving vivid examples and making clear the fact that they've experienced quite a bit. You have inappropriate pictures of kids floating around. It's a cesspool.

I'm not saying email can't also be used for those purposes. What I'm saying is that for MY email, I don't have to wade through all that crap to communicate with the people I want to communicate with. I can also get my email throughout the day on my phone which has push technology. It's almost a better communication outlet than the voice portion and I don't know what I'd do without it.

These kids will grow out of it. It's a fad; it'll come and go.

[vonnagy]

email, text, etc is SO impersonal

Let me start by saying that I use email and text when it is convenient. However, they both are impersonal and picking up the phone (mobile or land line) is much more friendly.

Here is food for thought: Has anyone thought that all of this "connectiveness" makes our lives more complicated and that personal space is no longer considered important.

Try this book: http://www.amazon.com/Better-Off-Flipping-Switch-Technology/dp/0060570040

[hormesis]

History repeats itself

Wasn't there a time when phone calls were considered very impersonal and couldn't match up to the professionalism and respect of a face to face conversation?

[Hoser McMoose]

Great, the future is...

For news about the future of the Internet we get quotes from a MySpace emo cutter and the chief Gaiafag.

If this is the future of humanity we're doomed!

[Fireweaver]

The future

Is e-mail dead? Not yet. That's not really the point of the article despite the title to suck you in. It's about kid's preference to use texting and social networking sites to e-mail.

Kids truly are the future- just ask why MS and Apple struggle to get their goods in schools everywhere. If kids grow up wanting to use social networking sites to communicate you can bet that down the road that's what business will be doing.

Am I saying that we'll be using MySpace for business contacts? God, no. If this is truly how communication changes then a new tool will be created to fill the need.

What will happen is that one of these kids will grow up and understand the need to have improved social networking site for business applications and will create it.

MySpace and Facebook are not what will be used. They will fall by the wayside as new sites are created that better merge business and integrate functionality needed by business.

People's comments on this article complained about MySpace's poor interface and load times, about the poor space limits and lack of ability to interface with phones and such. Those comments are defined needs and a jumping off point. Some kid who wants to communicate via social networking and texting in business is going to start a company that builds this site and fills these needs on the business world's terms.
That kid will be rich and business will change- not because e-mail doesn't have it's place, but because a better, more connected, more intuitive piece of software has come along.

[anspn]

Kids say a lot of things....

I've got 2 young ones (8 and 4) and they already tell me how I've got so much so wrong :)

Kids can help signal how technology use will evolve over time but we have to keep in mind that applications/services that are successful get tailored to the target segment/demographic and their specific needs.

Take social networking for example - kids certainly led the way and these networks are now going mainstream. There are also many specific family/parent networks out there now and this is evidence that kids can indeed serve as early adopters of new technology. The older demographics may not however use these services in the same way - for example, kids are using these networks to keep in touch, whereas parents may use it to share information or improve communication by using networks such as www.schoolparent.net