Disclaimer: I work for Google, but don’t have anything to do with GV except as a happy user.

*~*

PS pls note I often find myself in a hypnotic email state – open, respond, file; open, respond, file – and wonder ….. is there’s life after email

If it wasn’t for spam, email would be wonderful.

Maybe this story will help:
Boy meets girl. Girl says hi to all of Boy’s friends. Boy isolates himself from his friends. Boy splits-up with Girl. Girl’s friends say hi to Boy. Boy finds several new guy-friends. Repeat ad infinitum.
What can be said about Boy? Is he a bad-boy?
Depending on what attributes you apply to each character, you may infer a different morality upon each character. Personal bias is important in developing cultural norms. Okay. Now go replace “boy” and “girl” with your favorite Web2.0 technologies. Bad-boy technology can thrive in spite of moral back-lash.

I apologize if any certain Web2.0 stakeholders feel alienated by my comment. Check your (customer’s) morals, then, give ‘em what they are willing to pay for. But for G’s sake, no more spam!

I’m very public with my email and phone number, but filter everything down into email.

- Stop answering the phone, use Phonetag.com to transcribe your voicemail and send it to you in email. Google Voice will do the same thing for free, but you have to click through to the site to get your transcriptions. Phonetag.com sends them to you in email. Respond FAST and people will forgive you for not answering your phone. (This does not include your friends of course, just for business)

- Kill IM. Use gmail like IM. IM is great for group chat meetings, but will ultimately kill your focus. Basecamp’s Campfire is great for group chat / meetings.

- To save time organising meetings, try Tungle.com. Works great with Google Calendar. (I just started working for Meebee.com and they should also be worth a lookin soon)

- Meet online. Adobe Connect is the best solution I’ve found. It even allows everyone to use their webcam so you can see all the people you’re meeting with. Dimdim is a free alternative.

Hope this helps.

Products from both these companies are trying to knit into an e-mail interface Facebook and Twitter streams so that these can be treated in essentially the same way as e-mail. Both are also trying to organize message streams by context and by contact.

The situation with email is really a paradox. There are a lot of ways email makes overloading worse. And yet at the same time there’s nothing that replaces it in terms of a “common denominator” and its online/offline mix. It’s frustrating …

Personally I’ve tried to move as much of my communications as possible out of email, while continuing to use it as a notification (and offline-reading) mechanism. It’s not an ideal solution but it does lead to my spending time in multiple different environments rather than being email-centric, which in turn reduces my stress significantly.

jon

I suspect that your selection of email as the primary communications mode is the result of travel and connectivity issues. None of the alternative choices work well when you lack network connectivity. Travel causes many hours to be spent without adequate network connectivity. Bad weather, work restrictions, etc. can also interfere with connectivity.

Email can still be functional and effective when you are not connected. The difference between connected and disconnected is minor. This includes the multiple platform issues for those with multiple desktop and laptop systems. Email software deals with all those issues reasonably well. The case for email becomes stronger when you consider that the others that you deal with also face connectivity issues.

When the various alternative web systems address the issue of disconnected operation and provide nearly full function while disconnected, email will face serious competition.