IBM’s Social Computing Evangelist Luis Suarez (LinkedIn Profile) writes a piece in the New York Times (LinkedIn Company Profile) on the impending death of email and it’s replacement by social networking.
Anyways, here’s the gist:
Email doesn’t work – Hide from email – Inbox stops growing – everyone happy (or something to that effect) – Solution: Social Networking
My take: I’m a social networking early adopter (being the community evangelist at LinkedIn helps) and I’ve finally narrowed down my social networking choices to LinkedIn (d’uh!), Facebook and Twitter (with Friend Feed adding to this Inbox multiplicity dilemma!)
What this has created is 6 email inboxes in my life (outlined below) with the addition of one IM client, and I empathize with those who participate in more than 3 social networks.
1. Home – Gmail (I LOVE Gmail! Makes life so much easier and allows me to send email from other aliases. Wish I just had to contend with Gmail)
2. Work – Microsoft Entourage (Please don’t get me started on it!)
3. LinkedIn – I spend a ton of time every day on my professional network of choice and receive and send a ton of messages with my colleagues. I also use this to share news with my professional network.
4. Twitter – Love the immediacy and inevitably check this inbox once every day
5. Facebook – Receive messages but rarely check them; maybe once a week (sometimes not)
6. Friend Feed – Force myself to check it since some folks like Pirillo, Arrington & Winer have started using it for conversations. Personally not convinced yet.
7. In addition to the above Inboxes, I do use Adium for my IM needs (esp. trying to contact my colleagues at work, when I need a quick answer). Adium allows me to pull in a ton of IM clients into one sweet interface.
How many Inboxes do you manage today?
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Filed under: Miscellaneous