The End Of E-Mail
Author: Hunter Holcombe
May 2008
Techno Files
Here’s a fun trick: Close your eyes for a minute and try to remember the days before e-mail.
What do you see—bad haircuts, fax machines and constantly ringing telephones? Well, difficult as it is to imagine that anyone ever got any work done without this universal communication tool, it might be even harder to picture a future without e-mail.“E-mail is dead,” boldly states Richard Laermer, a regular speaker at planner events like MPI and the founder of RLM PR. To be more specific, Laermer believes that e-mail in its current form (address-based, open to the public) is on its way out. “People are starting to realize that they are not more successful [with e-mail], they are actually less successful,” he says.
Laermer cites the abundance of e-mail that we all must sift through every day—not just spam, but “bacon” (the term for e-mail we’re obligated to respond to), as well as newsletters, notifications from various groups we’ve become nonparticipating members of, forwarded mass e-mails and messages that require us to transfer to other sites (like “new mail” alerts from social networks).
As the author of six books, including trendSpotting, Laermer is an expert in predicting future trends in media and marketing. In explanation of why e-mail’s time is drawing near, he points to another trend that was supposed to save time and energy. “Remember the telephone answering machine? No one ever wanted to answer the phone anymore.” Instead of freeing up time, everyone was forced to play phone tag until someone actually decided to answer the phone. “People don’t use the telephone anymore, and it’s just stupid [not to].”
E-mail, Laermer believes, similarly makes communication more of a hassle than it is worth. So what, then, is the magic solution? Well, that’s the catch—it wouldn’t be a future trend if it already existed.
“It will be a much smarter device, a device where you accept people,” Laermer says. “People will pay a premium for a device that only accepts [communication from] people who you want to communicate with.”
A current technology that resembles what Laermer is talking about is restrictive social networking sites like Facebook, which allow you to control whether or not only those contacts whom you have accepted are allowed to send you messages. Facebook, however, in an effort to find a sustainable revenue source, has been experimenting with different advertising models and has been criticized for revealing users’ online shopping preferences. Thus, in its current form, social networking does not appear ideal for business communication. Instead, Laermer envisions a smarter technology that blends the immediacy of e-mail with the restrictive features of Facebook, and that operates on an entirely new platform.
As technology continues to improve and evolve, it may not be just e-mail that is led to the hangman’s noose, but all programs and devices that end up taking more time away from the user than is saved. Software, for example, typically involves constant notifications for the latest upgrade, with annoying little message boxes that pop up every time you turn on your computer. “I know people who have disconnected from iTunes, just because they are tired of the updates, and of the constant notifications in their e-mail,” Laermer says. “They bug you just as much as Macy’s does.”
At the end of the day, Laermer firmly believes the best technologies will be those that perform their function in the simplest way, and require the least amount of our time. “It’s the person with the smallest download, with the quickest program [that will succeed],” he says. “People are looking for the simplest, easiest way to stay in touch with the people they care about, and that’s it.” rlmpr.com
