Email can't be dead

Sitting in my drafts folder is a rant I wrote during one of the “email is dead” discussions. I think there’s a core of usefulness in my rant. The discussion was about how many click bait articles claim email is dead because people under 20 don’t have email accounts, or if they don’t, then they don’t check them.
Almost everything online is tied to an email account. Want Amazon prime? You need an email address. Want an Instagram account? you need an email address. Want access to Google docs? You need a gmail address. Want to buy almost anything off a website? You need an email address. Even for stuff that’s ostensibly displayed on mobile (event tickets, plane tickets, hotel check in info) they need an email address. Want to have access to iTunes? You need an email address. Want a blog hosted on blogspot? You need an email address.
Of COURSE people have email addresses. I will say that I’m finding myself using email a little less than I did. Facebook is a bit better at social networking than old school mailing lists and usenet. I mean, nothing will ever replace trn in my heart, but Facebook does remind me of usenet in some ways.
Oh, and yes, you mostly need an email address for Facebook (although I hear you can register an account with just a smartphone).
Email isn’t dead. Email isn’t going to die. Anyone who tells you otherwise is simply looking to monetize your clicks.

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Today’s blog post by Margot Romary at the Return Path In the Know blog reminds me that it’s not always new companies that don’t think about abuse potential before launching services.

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September 2014: The Month in Email

September was another busy month for us, but Steve stepped up and wrote a number of really interesting posts on email history, cryptography, and current technical issues in the email landscape.
We started the month with a look at the various RFCs that served as the technical specifications for developing message transfer protocols in the 1970s. It’s really fascinating to look at the evolution of these tools we use every day 40 years later. We followed up with a second post on the origins of network email, which is a great primer (or refresher) on the early days of email.
Steve’s four-part series on cryptography and email started with an in-depth look at how the industry is evolving with respect to encryption and privacy issues. He then introduced us to Alice and Bob (or reintroduced those of us who have been following the adventures of the first couple of cryptography), and described symmetric-key and public-key encryption. His next post described message signing, and how DKIM is used to manage this. He finished up the series with a post on PGP keys.
In industry news: Spamcop is shutting down its email service. There shouldn’t be any major impact on senders, but the post has some specific notes on DMARC implications. We also noted an interesting mail routing suggestion on Twitter, and wrote a post on using Mail.app for this.
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We couldn’t let a month go by without mentioning filters. We looked at a sector we don’t usually discuss, corporate filtering, and went in-depth on a much-misunderstood topic, content filtering.
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Think before you mail

I get quite a bit of unsolicited mail. I mean, sure, we all get a lot of spam, but that’s not the unsolicited mail I’m talking about. I’m talking about from people and companies in the email space. They want to make sure I’ve seen their new whitepaper or article about delivery. Or they have a question about something I’ve written here. Or they are looking to hire me.
All of these things are great. I love hearing from readers, either in comments or in email. We have a valid (unfiltered) contact address here on the blog. My email address(es) aren’t difficult to find. I want to talk to people.
Sometimes some of the people who contact me do actually send spam. It’s bulk, it’s impersonal, it’s not about me or my perspective it’s about them trying to sell something (themselves, their newest product, their company) to anyone who is buying.
If it’s clear it’s a one off I’ll generally just move the mail out of my inbox and forget about it. Sometimes, though, there are hints that this is more than just a one time mail. The email will have an unsubscribe link, or it’s the third or fourth time I’ve gotten mail from that sender or it will be from a PR company. I deal with them in different ways. Sometimes I’ll offer a different email address that I route better, or I’ll just filter the mail based on some unique bit of the header.
The ones that really get me, though, are when the senders argue with me that I should feel special to get their bulk mail. “It was individually sent to you!” “I sent it because you’re such a great resource and wanted to say thank you!” But it was bulk mail, mail dozens of other people got (hint: the email / delivery industry is very small. we talk to each other all the time, if you send mail to more than one of us, we’re going to talk about it).
I have no problem with you inviting me to your event. Or telling me about the latest or greatest thing you wrote. I don’t even mind the occasional one-off bulk mail. But if you are sending mail to a specific person, put in the 20 seconds to personalize it and make it feel like it’s special for me.
A few moments to think and personalize before you send that email will make your recipient much more open to your pitch. This is as applicable to one off mail as it is to bulk.

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