Messaging Is Not The Email Killer For Me
I sometimes hear talk about email being replaced by instant messaging and cringe. That talk is in niche circles from a few technophiles and a small selective group of enterprises. The reality is very different though.
Although messaging is fine and I love the Wickr solution, email is not going anywhere.
Let’s be pragmatic – email is ubiquitous and it’s standards based solution is quite user friendly when one thinks through the details. It might not be a secure solution like Wickr, but everyone (online) has an email address. It’s part of our identity and manages many parts of our online lives. When we type out an email, we don’t worry about the recipient having a different email app than we have. We don’t care which email provider the recipient uses generally. Our email will get there.
The format of email works. A subject lines saves me time. Searching through texts, chat, and IMs does not when I need something important.
Now, Google’s Inbox product is a very slick reinvisioning of the email inbox. I love this product because it solves even more email issues with its bundles feature that allows us to group emails into interests and moves those group bundles to the top of our inbox as new emails are received within them. Bundles is the core Inbox feature for me.
Snoozing emails to get them out of the inbox until a selected time (or location) when I need to actually read and deal with them is fantastic too.
Next is Google’s Inbox attachment preview which displays attachments separately so that they can be viewed quickly without having to open the parent email.
Google Inbox is one of the best products to come out of Google in a long time in my opinion. It’s the missing layer to email that I’m sure Google is investing in because it too knows: email is still here.
Back to messaging for a quick bit: if you haven’t downloaded the new Wickr desktop version – here is the Wickr Downloads Link. It’s minimal which is fantastic but does lack the imaging features of the app. Also, handoff between app and desktop is a little quirky. I’m trying to figure that part out. However, if you need security beyond email, Wickr is an awesome solution. I’ve written about it enough in the past if you want to read more.
Now heading back to my email inbox to get work done. I believe that to criticize email while believing that messaging is the solution is a bit naive. What do I know though (but I have spent some time on the product side of email).
Yes, I can love both Wickr and Google Inbox.
