Email Isn't Dying. It's Not Doing So Hot, Either

Email is the bane of many existences. Overflowing inboxes, spam and just plain more information than we can possibly process comes at us at the speed of light. It's all too much to process for many of us, so we're clinging to reports that email is going the way of the dinosaur.

Concepts like "email bankruptcy" and "inbox zero", along with reports that people under 25 increasingly use Facebook instead of email for most of their message give many people the idea that the entire conept is dying a slow, painful death. Don't believe the hype.

According to Ed Brill, IBM's Director of Social Collaboration, email isn't dying, exactly. It's just undergoing a metamorhosis. Given that the medium has only been around for 20 years or so, I asked him what it's morphing into:

Why do so many people think email is dying?

For many people, it's actually just wishful thinking. Inboxes can overflow with unread messages without proper email etiquette or use of mail management functions. With the emergence of social business tools, the thought "email is dying!" has certainly been hyped up in the media. But, while email is no longer the center of the collaborative universe, we still need email to perform the "activity management" function, and less of a "cc the world, the next world over, and the entire universe" communication function.