What is Your Primary Method of Communication? What Will it be in 5 years?
July 2, 2008
By: Drew Meyers
Author's Website: http://youreachmedia.com
Is e-mail in danger? That’s the question Alex Iskold at ReadWriteWeb set about to answer with his post yesterday. With Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, text messaging, blogs, wikis, Skype, instant messaging, and the array of other online communication tools available, the question of whether e-mail is in danger is a valid one in my mind.
I’ll be the first to admit it — I’m immersed in my inbox at work everyday at work and it’s absolutely essential to getting my work done. But outside of work, I am seldom on e-mail. Instead, I communicate daily with people via Facebook, google talk, AOL Instant Messenger, Skype, cell phone, and through text messaging.
I think the shift toward alternative online forms of communication will become more and more relevant to real estate professionals as those belonging to Generation Y (like me) begin buying homes. Part of the home buying process requires conversing with agents and mortgage lenders. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that real estate professionals are going to have to adapt to the new forms of communication used by tomorrow’s home buyers, or lose that business to others who do.
I’m certainly not ready to give up my inbox, at least not YET, but the question still stands — do you think e-mail is in danger as the preferred online communication tool? If the answer is yes, then as a very seldom twitter user, I’ll just have to hope that twitter is not the communication tool that takes it over — or get with the program if it is.
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- Categories: Communication
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What is Your Primary Method of Communication? What Will it be in 5 years? on July 2, 2008 11:28 pm
[...] Original post by Drew Meyers [...]
Riverside Homes for Sale on July 3, 2008 7:44 am
I think that email is not the most effective way to communicate. You have all of these duplicates of files scattered. I know Google, and others, are pushing for people to move their data “into the cloud”, of online hosting. With Google Docs, Google Calendar, upcoming.Yahoo, and a thousand startup 2.0 companies, there isn’t a single functionality that shortly won’t be covered with a reliable online host. With Fios and fiber optics coming along, connection will be instant and reliable. I personally will gladly trade in my inbox, but I don’t think twitter has the stability needed, or the tools. Here’s a picture I found that sums up my feeling towards twitter. http://www.flickr.com/photos/24973901@N04/2626278348/
Andrew Mattie on July 3, 2008 9:40 am
I for one am definitely ready to give up my inbox. I haven’t yet figured out what will replace it, but I know that there’s *something* wrong when I spend more time sifting through and replying to emails than I spend on what all of the emails are generally related to (that is, software development).
Although I haven’t jumped completely on board yet, one of my favorite philosophies on email jives very well with what Mike Davidson of Newsvine came up with. Take a look here: “A Low-Fi Solution to E-mail Overload: Sentenc.es” http://www.mikeindustries.com/blog/archive/2007/07/fight-email-overload-with-sentences. It’s hard to commit to something like that, but then again, so is trying to find a good balancing act between managing communications and, well, working.
All that said, please email me when you find a better solution.
Spencer Rascoff on July 3, 2008 11:26 am
Email rules. I don’t see any of those other forms of communication replacing it, at least not for me.
Drew Meyers on July 3, 2008 3:54 pm
Spencer-
Fair enough — we all know you’re an outlook junkie
Sid Kirkland on July 3, 2008 6:25 pm
I really don’t like outlook. It’s really clunky…(Then again I am not upgraded to the newest version…
Real Estate Raj on July 5, 2008 5:15 pm
I’d be in favor of giving up my inbox if I knew there something something dramatically better. I don’t see any of the alternates you’ve listed that fits the bill
Stacey Pfeifer on July 8, 2008 4:46 pm
Drew- I just started on Twitter not long ago. although i highly doubt it’ll replace email, i’m using it to get that ambient connected feeling [okay i'm from california] but also to find resources and ideas I would never be exposed to.like this tweet:
this is why im loving twitter discvrd taylor mali frm @chrisbrogan’s fav blogpost08 thn found http://tinyurl.com/34jblu
i like the serendipity of it. little treasures drop into my lap sometimes. i hope you stick with it. i’m gonna go follow you now! thanks for your post.