This is not in any way talking about how AOL is a business or anything else about how it has changed since it “connected” to the Internet. I’m talking about the old days when these large dial in networks could only support communications inside their own confines.
It came to me this weekend, that it’s easy enough to message people inside FB, but the the only way that you can react to it is to login. Sure FB sends a message that you have mail waiting (in this manner, it’s much like Moodle or Vista4/BB6), but you have to log in (and see the ads) to reply. This is the same for offline IMs as well. People seem to have accepted this “messages of a type in a location of a type” idea rather well – so your FB time is about talking with friends, your IM time is about… well the same thing. So what happened to email?
Email is an open system for the most part. You can contact anyone at any time – leading to spam and the like – and this openness is likely the double edged sword of the system and something that has lead to the downfall of email’s use as a social tool for many users.
Login systems are seemingly immune from the really nasty spam issues that plague most inboxes – at least for now. Giving perhaps a better (safer?) user experience.
Leave a Reply