Email Needs Improvement, Not Google Voice or Wave

Author:

Aaron Shapiro

Source:

Those watching the Google Wave crash have posited that the communications platform failed because it was hard to use. Mashable founder and CEO Pete Cashmore said, "With its many dials and switches, mastering Wave was the web equivalent of programming your VCR." A valid point. Tech Crunch's MG Siegler argued the ambitious product was under-supported by Google. Another reasonable assertion.
 
But in the end, Google Wave, underneath the layers of document sharing, task tracking, meeting scheduling and wave making was a simple tool to improve communications between co-workers, friends and family. The trouble is there is already a king of the communications kingdom: email.
 
Email is something that can only exist courtesy of the network effect. It's both wonderful and terrible, indispensable and so utterly outdated it's just waiting to be replaced, but in the end, the product is so entrenched it never goes away.
 
Let's take a step back to admire how amazing email really is: it's ubiquitous, convenient, nearly real-time, sends files, facilitates group conversations without a meeting room reservation or call-in number, and it creates a lasting record of all words expressed. It encourages accountability and efficiency. It's incredibly easy to use. Almost too easy, given the number of forwards my parents won't stop sending me. Most valuable of all, the majority of emails are brief and only require a brief response. It allows me to sneak my work and social life into the slivers of my day once wasted: waiting for a friend at a restaurant, sitting in a taxi cab, waiting for curtain call at the theater. It's key to my and millions of others' daily lives.
 
But email is also very flawed and it is those flaws that motivate Google Wave and others to step up to the plate to take a crack at breaking down its market dominance ...
 
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