Software, Interrupted

Interesting new data from Nielsen Online says "member communities" (e.g., social networks and blogs have become more popular than e-mail.

Blogs and social apps beating e-mail

(Credit: eMarketer)

While the data does not show a dramatic difference between member communities and e-mail use, in terms of percentage points, it does reflect an impact that social communication is having on the way we work and communicate.

Of course, the other side of the equation is finding out how the sample data was taken and if it's based only on consumer data. Nonetheless, it shows that information is moving online, not getting stuck in e-mail boxes.

Another interesting statistic is the fact that 85 percent of those surveyed use search tools, showing once again that the data structure of the Web still has a long way to go. That stat should also bring comfort to Google shareholders.

Just when you finally came to terms with your e-mail addiction, blogs came along, then IM, then Twitter, and now we are all zombies. As it turns out, e-mail is a dangerous distraction.

In a study last year, Dr. Thomas Jackson of Loughborough University, England, found that it takes an average of 64 seconds to recover your train of thought after interruption by e-mail. So people who check their e-mail every five minutes waste 8 1/2 hours a week figuring out what they were doing moments before.

I would suspect that Twitter and random IMs must double the wasted time leading to 17 hours a week of figuring out what you were just doing. This constant distraction is similar to gambling, heeding to a "variable interval reinforcement schedule" which is the same feeling you get from playing a slot machine.

"This means that rather than reward an action every time it is performed, you reward it sometimes, but not in a predictable way. So with e-mail, usually when I check it there is nothing interesting, but every so often there's something wonderful--an invite out or maybe some juicy gossip--and I get a reward." This is enough to make it difficult for us to resist checking e-mail, even when we've only just looked. The obvious solution is to process e-mail in batches, but this is difficult. One company delayed delivery by five minutes, but had so many complaints that they had to revert to instantaneous delivery. People knew that there were e-mails there and chafed at the bit to get hold of them.

As an interesting contrast, the NY Times published a piece earlier this week about the Brave New World of Digital Intimacy that helps to explain how all this connectivity actually might be making our lives better.

Today I am on blog, Twitter, IM, cell phone, and three different e-mail accounts...at least until I get to the casino.

Before I became a marketing wonk I was a knowledgeable technologist, which is probably why I've never once enjoyed any e-mail system that I have used or implemented. Over the last 15 years, I have tried pretty much everything, from Pine to Zimbra, to MS Exchange to Lotus Notes and several different IMAP and POP options. Every time it's the same thing--the system works within reason but is never great. And there is always something that bites you in the rear.

I first started outsourcing e-mail to managed providers in 2003 when I worked for a CEO who demanded MS Exchange and we only had Linux boxes. It was never great and it was too expensive to boot. But the offerings have gotten much better and at this point I can't see a small- or medium-sized business running its own mail server. It's just not necessary.

Here are my fundamental hopes for e-mail:

• Reliable delivery of mail (dare to dream)
• Reliable delivery of mail on mobile devices (Blackberry and iPhone)
• Shared calendaring with administrator abilities (i.e. admin access)
• Backup and recovery
• Reliable SPAM prevention
• Sync across multiple computers and devices