E-mail is in the danger zone, but I disagree. For businesses, even though twitter, IM, chat, etc. seems to be well integrated into our daily lives, e-mail is going nowhere. While many would like to believe that it’s going away, and I know a few that would love it to just disappear entirely, I seriously doubt it’s going anywhere anytime soon.

My Thought Process

Eliminate e-mail and where we are is back somewhere around 1992. There would be specific networks or nodes set up like the old FidoNet and people would be messaging there, well, via the e-mail system on the node network. Anyone remember your first Fidomail address? Talk about funny looking, but the best thing is that it did work. Same thing with today’s e-mail.

While twitter, IM, chat all seem to have a better way of communicating, the fact remains that most of these services are all dominated by early adopters. When the mass public jumps on board, the early adopters leave the services and go elsewhere. Where do the go? They go of course to find the newest service they can go ga-ga over. Case in point, Mr. Scoble.

I can probably count the number of services that he has touted as the next big thing, on my feet and hands, and that is probably only the past 6 months. Now those that are following this so far, think how many services have you joined or checked out because he told you it was the coolest thing going?

Also with that thought in mind, I can also count the number of times these supposed replacement to e-mail services have been down. Not saying that e-mail is bullet proof, but chances are twitter will be down again before my company e-mail or Gmail is down.

Where Do We Go Now?

The original gunners asked that question. I personally would love e-mail to be replaced by something else. For now, I don’t see any other option for business to turn too. Again, chat and IM seem to be great options, but as a good example – if you aren’t partaking in say a company chat room – well than you may as well have phoned in your day.

That is the biggest issue I see. Getting everyone onboard on a concept that is simple to some, but seemingly hard for others to adjust too. Where do we go? Straight back to the e-mail program of choice, and drop the person a line!

Time to check your inbox

Technically Speaking, it’s time to once again check my inbox as it’s only Wednesday and we are still all not on holiday yet! btw, just think about it – the above video I linked was before e-mail!