The Coming Failure of Email

Email has replaced phone calls, letters and Fax's.  Email has become the #1 way that people communicate.  The only problem is that email doesn't work - it's a complete failure as a system - Sooo as you can tell I have a problem with email.  It's just a small issue one that sort of snuck up on me over time.  You see I have to spend a great deal of time just checking mine.

My first email account was a yahoo account - I give this account address to anyone who is really trust worthy might send me spam or in general is not a friend.  My yahoo.com was first opened in 1995 - remember 1995? - I was fooling around with it and yahoo thinks I was born in 2002 - which was a problem when I was single and trying to use there dating services.  but I digress...

My second email address is my professional storytelling address the @ericwolf.org address - this is the email you get if I think you are one of my friends, a serious business contact or someone I actually want to talk to.

The problem with both of these primary account is just that they are primary and full to the prim with stuff I don't really want or at least can't keep track of.  @ericwolf.org account is really four email addresses so you can bring the total count up to 6.  I also feed my five other websites into the so you can add 12 more emails and you get the a lot of emails you can send to me from different random places and still end up in my primary box.  Needless to say I am very careful where I send things with one of those emails.

Then I have all the other emails - I have to have lost count.

1 - ATT in there brilliance decided that to get Internet I must have an email account with them - so presto another email I never check.  Earning my hatred for something else I didnt' want but am forced to have.

2 - Facebook gave me an email with out asking me - corporate person hood anyone - if they were a person I would throttle them...

3 - I had to get a Gmail account - because you can't use certain aspects of Google services without Gmail - though I happy I had a choice.

4 - I have decided to attend graduate school next year - so I have an account there as a student I am required to have one - blah.

5 - I am teaching a class at another university - and surprise I am teaching a class there as well!

6 - Does twitter count  - well they do have direct messaging - that's sorta like email

OK here is the score - 24 separate email addresses and 8 separate places I am required to check every day or a least once a week.  Plus really the yahoo account is almost un-useable because of the HUGE amount of traffic and all the presorting that goes on each day.

That's why I think email is broken or at the very least going to completely fail in the next year. - solve this problem and I give you the world.