n. Until all messaging services become interoperable and open, email will remain a critical part of electronic communications
Reshared post from +Mike Elgan
The social network wars are over. And winner is: email!
The convention wisdom says email is old and social networking is new.
But email isn't just the oldest social network, it's also the biggest, the broadest, the most user-controllable, the most integrated, the most powerful and ultimately the best social network on the Internet.
Here's why:
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9239684/The_social_network_wars_are_over._The_winner_email_
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As a systems admin who's been fiddling with email systems like Exchange, sendmail, etc. for quite some time, I find the tone of this article very strange (not to mention some of the comments on it.) Are people really that unaware of the history of Internet services? Most of the issues mentioned here are very old and well-researched.
They speak of things like mail categorization and spam control like they are new problems. Not to mention that email certainly isn't the oldest social networking service — IRC, BBSes, telephone party lines and just plain meeting people are the true progenitors of "social networking."
It feels very naïve to me (or perhaps I'm just old and curmudgeonly.)