As many of you know, I’ve asked for your opinions a couple times over the last month or so. First, I asked you newsletter subscribers if you would enter a contest for a free giveaway from The Practical Nerd, and then I asked all of you readers if you thought email was getting obsolete, thanks to the efforts of services like Facebook and Twitter, as well as Google Docs. Here’s what you said:
Would you enter a contest for a personal finance book from The Practical Nerd?
Twenty of you chimed in and showed a strong support for the contest idea. This is great news, as I am itching to start branching out and trying some different ways to engage all of you and encourage interaction. This might be the way to do it, so stay tuned!
Is email getting obsolete?
Well, shockingly few of you seemed to care about this topic. A full SEVEN of you wanted to be heard, and while the winner was “Not yet, but it will”, most of you seemed to think that it wouldn’t, and some of you were adamant that you’ll always be using email. I disagree with the notion that we will always be using email. I think there are ways that communication is continuing to evolve and grow, and email will eventually be replaced by something else. What, I’m not sure. Google seems to think that Google Wave will be the email killer. But if the mainstream isn’t using Google Wave, what good will it be? It’s kind of an “all-or-nothing” type approach. Non-Twitter users seem to use the service as something of a joke, but Mashable recently posted 13 things you can do on Twitter besides telling people what you are doing, and these things range from file sharing to payments to job hunting and games. Twitter is an extremely powerful platform, and I’m buying into it more and more every day. I do think that between Twitter, Facebook, and Google Docs, along with instant messaging like Skype, email is starting to get redundant. But time will tell.
Thanks to all of you who voted, and stay tuned for more down the line!
Tom is an entrepreneur and freelance writer, working out of his apartment full-time, or wherever he feels like taking his laptop. He doesn't take long European vacations or blogs on the beach. He's an Average Joe that took control of his life. He wants you to do the same.
