[extropy-chat] TRENDS: Email is so yesterday

[Eugen Leitl]

On Wed, Oct 04, 2006 at 11:02:54PM -0400, Mike Dougherty wrote:
> 
>    On 10/4/06, [1]nvitamore at austin.rr.com <[2]nvitamore at austin.rr.com>
>    wrote:
> 
>      Anyone have thoughts on this?
>      [3]http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061002-7877.html

Not really a recent trend. What to do depends on whether a new
medium offers advantages and/or the community around a legacy medium
declines (should I personally adopt it?) or whether you're interested in
outreach to new audiences (should I adopt new comm stuff in order
to talk to the new kids? -- I must admit I don't, they just have
nothing worthwhile to say).
 
>    my thought is that convergence isn't happening quickly enough.  We
>    don't need to distinguish between IM and Email.  We need only to

The convergence doesn't happen at all, it's a bunch of protocols and
according implementations completely lacking glue. Until somebody
sets out to build it, roll it out in a wide enough scale to get
people interested. Are you trying to do that?

>    express an idea towards a recipient.  If you are available via IM, we
>    should be communicating with a low latency of about every 5 words to a

If I was available via IM I couldn't get anything done because of
constant interruptions. I banish email if I have to do something
requiring some concentration.

>    full sentence.  If you are not available, my entire stream of IM
>    idea-a-grams should automatically coalesce into the notion of an email
>    which you catch up on when you return to availability.  If I then want

Realtime and email don't mix.

>    that message to be consumed by a group, the thoughts should be tagged
>    in a way that authenticates the group members to have access to the
>    content.  If I want no access restrictions, then my IM/email/blog is
>    world-readable.  I want a Wiki-style page that I can grant R/W/RW
>    access to nobody/one friend/all friends/everybody or any combination.

You can't get anything done on a blog. Wikis are reasonably useful.

>    The same slow convergence trend is in personal electronics too.  Why
>    do I have to decide if I want the 40Gb or 60Gb iPod - If you put wi-fi

I don't have to decide. I just don't need overpriced mp3 players.
I can't afford to insulate myself from the environment when riding
a bike, and my hearing survived in a reasonably good shape,
which I'd rather like to keep. Whenever I use audio I just use
a radio news-only channel, to keep in touch with mundanes.

>    in it then I wouldn't need more than 2Gb and my media could live on a
>    server and stage the 'next 3' songs on the device for playback.
>    Caching software is smart enough to anticipate my playlist

I don't have a playlist. I rarely listen to music at all anymore.

>    requirements.  If you network enable the music player, why not put a
>    phone in it?  Oh yeah, that's already been done.  But then why doesn't
>    that device have a good camera?  1.3megapixels?  that's not good,

I have such a thing, but the trouble isn't megapixels. The trouble
is getting decent optics in a small and short-focus enough package.
That's optics, which you can't fix well with megapixels.

>    that's pre-Y2K.  Let's start with a 5MP camera and add phone, no lets
>    add PDA, no music, etc.  Why can't we have one device that has all

Thanks, I already wear a brick at my belt with a short enough battery
lifetime (less than a week) as is.

>    these things in it?  Because people keep spending their money to get
>    the next <slightly> cooler gadget in an effort to stay on the cutting

People don't. Some novelty-seekers with disposable income do.

>    edge.
>    </rant>
>    I'm sure this is similar to "kids" adoption of the telephone 60+ years
>    ago.  Or radio however many more years ago, or any technology that was
>    once unavailable until it became ubiquitous.  the only people who
>    worry about being "old" because they haven't adopted the "hip" thing
>    are already hopelessly uncool anyway.

Oh yeah, how we all are worried about peer pressure and always trying so
hard to emulate whatever hip is these days. Or not.

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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