Whatever Happened To Email?

The problem with Facebook and Twitter is they lack the ability to look back in an organized fashion.

I used to wake up to dozens of email messages every day. Now I get very few. People have chosen to communicate via social networks like Facebook and Twitter rather than ‘actual’ email. That’s a problem.

I am a pack rat as far as email is concerned. I try not to throw any messages away.

A few years ago I ran up against Gmail’s storage limit and just bought some more! Problem solved.

Facebook and Twitter both lack the ability to easily look back in an organized fashion. With Gmail (and even my geofffox.com email address is served by Gmail) everything is fully indexed. Everything is easily to find.

I can’t tell you how often I’ve looked for a shred of information contained in an email years old. A few keystrokes entered and it’s there!

I am a very disorganized person. This was the most organized facet of my life!

It’s tough to fight the tide. More-and-more people ask questions or make comments by posting on my Facebook wall, sending me a Facebook message or tweeting. There’s really nothing I can do.

I miss the good old days.

8 thoughts on “Whatever Happened To Email?”

  1. I totally agree! I was just looking at my facebook wall and saw a friend of mine and his girlfriend making plans for tonight…..through their facebook postings! I think that since they’re living together, they’d have each other’s email addresses and phone numbers! Weird world we now live in! BTW, I still don’t watch WTNH, it’s only Fox on Fox for me! 🙂

  2. I’m with you Geoff, I have different folders in my email account to sort the emails. Let me tell you, I’m so glad I have saved them because occasionally I need to refer to an old one to settle a disagreement with either friends who swear they “never said that”, or companies that claim I haven’t paid them. I just pull up the appropriate folder, and forward them a copy of their personal email or invoice.

  3. Yes, I agree, Geoff. That’s one of my beefs with fb and twitter… the lack of search capabilities. Google+ is better, but still, it’s not the same as having that email archived.

  4. As much as I love Facebook, I still depend on email. They’re like getting little presents. I don’t do twitter or even have a cellphone. (I’m not that important 😉 So it still is the best way of communicating. I have noted, however, I get very few phone calls on my regular home phone.

  5. Geoff, I totally agree. I too have utilized information much later that I had saved in organized email folders.

  6. I totally agree with needing to be organized, but the thing that drives me crazy about all of the FB chatter is when your friends insist on writing on your wall about personal things instead of sending a private message! I don’t want everybody in the world to know what I’m doing 24/7!

    1. Thinks wading through 1500 spams to get the one you need killed it for me! Why oh why do so many great ideas get trashed by commercialization?

  7. While I like e-mail as a great communicating tool (sort of), I don’t make a habit of saving every scrap of e-mail that comes to me. I only save the ones that might have some future use should someone decide to make a complaint or take action against me for simply responding to a bad action that they initiated.

    As for FB, I deactivated myself about a month ago because of the privacy issues that some commenters here have mentioned.

Leave a Reply to Jim Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *