I work in technology company. I recieve more than 150 emails every single day. I've also been recieveing about 5 from one individual that forwards me jokes. I decided to set them straight on a few issues. Here was my letter:
Ok, I've been waiting more than a year to tell you some information. I was hoping you'd have it out of your system by now but I think it time to just tell you the facts.
Fact #1: Most of these jokes have been around for decades.
Fact #2: E-mail has been around for decades.
Fact #3: Forwarding jokes has been around for decades.
Fact #4: Most people that have had email have heard these jokes several times.
It's important in this increasingly fast-paced world to not be too far behind the times. Otherwise you lose touch with the younger generations. With that in mind I'd like to give you a brief history of one small part of the internet.
My first email was sent in 1989. By 1993 nearly every technology company had inter-company email. Around 1997 email'ing was common for nearly everyone with a computer and modem. By 2000 just about every joke ever told had been see in everyone's in box several times. Around that same time the World Wide Web was in full swing and people were no longer getting their information from email, they were now going to favorite web sites. A couple years later blogging started to become very popular. By 2005 nearly everyone that had something to say, no matter how trivial (including jokes) was blogging. A couple years ago the next revolution in communication happened: Cell phones, texting, and Twitter.
That's where we are today. I listen to NPR every day and they routinely talk about someone "twittering" a comment or some recent fact, someone they mention someone's blog. Email is sometimes, but rarely mentioned.
Communication has fractured into several different 'modes' based on the type of communication you want to send or receive.
For private individuals
---------------
Email: personal communication only, no forwarding unless is really important. No mass mailing (it's considered spam).
Blog: Anything and everything you want to share. (Medium to long) However the standard is at least one paragraph of information. This does not have to be your own information.
Twitter: Anything and everything you want share. (Short) When you want to say one sentence or two.
The other key is the internet world is moving to an Opt-In model. Email is used less and less because it does not allow a person to Opt-in. Blogs and Twitter are both Opt-In. So if a person wants to hear what you have to say, they Opt-In. If they don't they don't.
In short, the forwarding of jokes is at least a decade behind the times. If you want to share those, put them on your blog.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I recall when times moved on and I moved on and soon my father and I had little in common. We worked on his cars together, played horseshoe together, went fishing together, ate together and that was about it. Now I am an older man and much, such as e-mailing, is moving on. E-mail is still a common mode of communication amongst us older guys but perhaps we'll catch up with blogging, twittering, etc. as opting in does make a lot of sense. I wonder how short is short and how moderate is moderate regarding length of text. I think that what I think is moderate many would think is way too long.
I recognize this situation, went through it myself. My only sadness was that once the jokes and other rampant garbage stopped coming into my in-box, they no longer sent me anything. Why not share something meaningful and real so that I want to engage in communication instead of forwarding meaningless garbage that only made me dread incoming e-mails from that particular "loved one"?
Post a Comment