"Email is dead!" Don't quite agree, myself!

Link: The death of e-mail?

Once again, a really, really good article from the Chicago Tribune.  This one points to the fact that according to comScore Media Matrix, USA teenage email use is dropping and is being replaced by more instant alternatives.

"It’s too complicated to send e-mail," 14-year-old Jennica Paho, of San Jose, Calif., told the San Jose Mercury News last month. "I have to go in and type it, and send it, then wait for a reply."

It takes, like, you know, minutes and everything.

Seriously, though, just a little more than a decade after it hit the mainstream, e-mail already is on the way out.

I get this.

I rarely check my hotmail account.  It’s just takes too long.  I don’t like faffing around logging in and waiting for it to screw around logging me into passport servers, blah blah … and THEn it doesn’t even take me to my inbox.  It makes me CLICK again to get into my email.  As if I’ve any interest in reading the welcome page.

Yes I have an interest… but NOT when my mind is set on sending an email, or checking an email.

So the author of this article, Dave Wischnowsky, certainly has a point. 

Indeed, I really identify with this perspective:

Well, e-mailing is just too slow. And too uncertain.

"E-mail is more like snail mail. You don’t know when they’re going to get it," Alex Stikeleather, 17, of Palo Alto, Calif, explained.

This is the single reason why I use SMS.  I generally need the message to get to the person immediately.  Otherwise I’ll email it and they can pick it up whenever.

However, there is one point that makes this whole discussion null and void: Blackberry.  (Or similar – e.g. Sidekick or any near real time mobile email device).  I love it when I meet a new person who is Blackberrified.  I know that I can email them and they’ll get it as quickly as they’ll get a text.  I love the ability to be able to email them a long comment or a short quick quip…  and get a response just as soon as they’re able to.

I keep seeing photos of celebrities clutching the latest Blackberry or Sidekick.  That makes sense to me.  They can email and call as they wish.  However, it’s interesting that Paris Hilton’s sidekick or blackberry usage has done nothing whatsoever for the device.

You’d think that celebrities showing off Blackberries would really boost sales.  Not here, anyway.  I have never, ever seen a teenager or young person (e.g. under 21) using a Blackberry.   Never. 

Anyway I’ll post more on that later.  I think it’s an interesting issue.

Meanwhile, I can well believe teen email usage is dropping.  So actually, … forget the title of this post.  😉  I wish someone, somewhere, would start up a mobile operator that actually puts instant email and messaging into the hands of the youth, instead of limiting them to 160 characters….