Exploding Messaging

Cognitive dissonance on iChat
Originally uploaded by adactio.

I've used the word exploding to talk about the new possibilities and risks facing mediums like television and radio.

But it also applies to the world of electronic messaging. When I first went online there were two forms of electronic messaging - email and chat. Email was network centric meaning you had to be on compuserve to exchange email with a compuserve member. Chat was largely a group experience although you could always go to a private chatroom.

Fifteen years later we've got a myriad of choices. Email is now completely interoperable and as a result it is the big kahuna (to use martin's words) but here are the other messaging systems I used yesterday:

Instant messaging
Text messaging
Commenting on a blog
Leaving a message/comment on a social network
Sending sitemail on myspace
Hanging out on an irc channel
Posting a link with a comment for my wife on delicious

And those are just the ones I can remember.

Most people my age (45 last week) use email, instant messaging, and to some extent text messaging.

My kids mostly use sitemail, commenting, text messaging, and instant messaging.

Jason Calacanis wrote an interesting post yesterday about the explosion of site messaging. It's pretty clear to me that the messaging options are increasing at a more rapid pace these days than ever before.

Clearly generational factors are at work in this explosion of messaging options. Kids have different communications needs than adults.

And mobility is certainly a big factor in the popularity of texting.

But I think behavior, context, and convenience are the most significant factors in the explosion of messaging options.

People message in the manner that is most convenient and relevant to the message they want to deliver.

As a sender, I love the explosion of messaging options.

But as a recipient, I hate it.

I've got a ton of messaging systems to monitor these days.

I can forward all my email accounts (seven I think) to a single mailbox and I've been managing my email that way for a long time.

But I can't do that with text messages, instant messages, myspace sitemail, blog comments (I do get the comments on my blog via email), comments on my various social networks, irc discussions, and postings to delicious for me.

Feeds can be a tool to manage a lot of this. I've been waiting for myspace to offer rss feeds of myspace comments for a while. Maybe they don't want to lose all those page views to rss, but I doubt that's going to happen because only 9pcnt of all internet users even know what rss is right now.

Then of course there is the question of whether I even want all of my messages consolidated in one place. I think I do, but I am not sure if my email inbox is the pace I want them consolidated.

I've seen a number of startups working on this problem but have yet to see one with a solution that I think is on the money for a mass audience.

If you are working on a project in this area, please let us know.

Comments (8) | Posted August 29, 2006 in Venture Capital and Technology

Comments

HAPPY BIRTHDAY FRED!!! Missed your birhtday blog post.

Posted by: Tony Alva | Aug 29, 2006 11:19:50 AM

Fred,

*I've seen a number of startups working on this problem but have yet to see one with a solution that I think is on the money for a mass audience.*

What startups have you seen and what's wrong with the solutions they come up with?

What is your definition of "on the money"?

I definitely see the point as I can't subscribe to just _this_ comment thread to see when someone replies.

Thanks, Joel

Posted by: Joel Reymont | Aug 29, 2006 1:07:28 PM

People don't need to know what RSS is, if they get pulled into feed streams, whether by MyYahoo, Google BlogReader, or whatever...

Posted by: Bill Seitz | Aug 29, 2006 2:15:23 PM

Fred:
Suggest greater effort in your search or else Yahoo will figure it out first. Definitely agree with your determination/definition of the market need.

Posted by: Robert Hacker | Aug 29, 2006 3:58:06 PM

You might also have used the mail, UPS or FedEx today, as well. Or even a fax machine. And maybe electronic billing and online bill-pay.

It's a question of the network and interoperability - both whether it can be interoperable, and whether the recipient wants it to be. eFax delivers my faxes to the same email inbox I route my half-dozen email accounts into. Bills have moved beyond the mail and now magically appear on my bank's website and in my email.

I still have to be arround to sign for a FedEx - short of that age-old innovation (the doorman) I doubt technology can really help there. However I enjoy keeping SMS separate. I don't want to risk it becoming unreliable, like email on my Treo 700w, or as wordy or formal as email. It's short message service for a reason.

Regarding blogs and social networking, I think the services who care about their users and don't depend entirely on advertising forward communications freely. TypePad emails me if anyone comments on my blog. Kaboodle (a superior delicious competitor) will forward comments to your email as well. LinkedIn sends its internal mail to my email. All of those forwarding services are optional, but - as you point out - the user prefers seeing everything in one place. MySpace will never let you streamline the process because, as you point out, they will lose revenue.

Posted by: Alex | Aug 29, 2006 4:06:48 PM

If you want to know where the future is headed, read the following book:

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. Yes, the book is science fiction, but it accurately describes what the future will be like. It details a 3d avatar based internet. It describes how everything is privatized from the local jail to the tollways.

Everytime I read about a technological advance, especially with the internet, I think of Snow Crash.

Posted by: Jim Eiden | Aug 29, 2006 4:28:12 PM

that rss 9% number has to be exaggerated. i'd bet it's down near 2%.

Posted by: Peter | Aug 29, 2006 8:58:19 PM

For years I used an aggregated chat tool on my desktop/laptop, but in the past three years or so I have moved back to separate clients as the chat client adds context for me. I have AIM/iChat mostly for friends (a couple clients in there); Yahoo IM for Yahoo friends and some people who I collaborate with; and Skype which is nearly all work related.

Increasingly, where I really want a unified tool is on my mobile device. I may only have a person's AIM or YIM and I want to let them know I am out of a meeting not far from them and to connect. I may not have their mobile number to text them. Currently, I have to use the mobile browser interfaces for these tools and they are all separate. They don't thread chat and don't store it (a phone number passed in mobile IM is just lost after you respond). This really needs to get fixed.

I have been playing with Twitter, but the traffic of items not of interest to me was not something really was missing in my life. But, if that were narrowed to a group of people I was meeting, now that would be helpful. How many times have you been meeting up with more than two people and tried to text everybody at once and pass messages back out when people respond back.

BTW, it was ironic that a friend pointed me here only to see myself and Jeremy's conversation about how odd it was to see yourself in another context.

Posted by: vanderwal | Sep 1, 2006 11:00:06 AM

A VC

Musings of a VC in NYC