Is E-mail Dead?

I just read a blog entry that asked the above question.

Interesting enough, the article agrees and disagrees with my earlier blog entry entitled "A Not-So New Technology That Now Makes Most Mailing Lists Obsolete".

It agrees basically with my statements "One forward-looking beauty of RSS feeds is that they can effectively reduce the number of hands that a piece of information has to go through to reach each traditional mailing list member" and "A mailing list is now best used to:

1. eliminate unwanted noise (spam); or

2. reduce opportunities for Brothers to be heard; or

3. focus minds on a particular topic or issue".

The article disagrees in spirit with #2 above. It states that mailing lists will have to be used to reach and target individuals versus being broadcast to an entire group.

But since the e-mail is sent to everyone, it cannot escape #1 in that e-mails may be unwanted by many on the list.

Therefore, tags and RSS feeds allow everyone to receive the information for the masses while allowing particular segments to receive information that does not appear on the radar screens of the masses but an interested minority.

So to a certain degree, the interested minority will be able to go deeper into analyzing the pros and cons of trade secrets.

This is the basic principle and benefit that blogs provide and being able to subscribe to blogs via RSS feeds further capitalizes on this opportunity.

Yours in the Bond!