No Email Day - 11/11/11 - #noemail

Martin Bryant, writing at The Next Web (insider), covers the 40 years of email from the first email sent by MIT graduate Ray Tomlinson who was working at research and development firm Bolt, Beranek and Newman to the pending end of email and the coming of #noemail. Yes, Tomlinson confesses that his very first mail was likely gibberish or what we now call spam, likely “‘QWERTY’ or another string of characters”.

Spam continues to be part of the email life, if you can call that life. “Pingdom claims that 262 billion spam messages were sent daily in 2010, that’s 89.1% of all emails sent.” (emphasis added).

But the nail in the email coffin isn’t spam, but a changing culture that requires something better, faster, more personal, more mobile, more like IM, Messenger, GTalk, Facebook, and/or Google+. ” A ComScore study on 2010 digital trends in the US found that Web email usage saw an 8% year-on-year decline in 2010 overall, with a 59% decline in use among people aged between 12-17.” (again I add emphasis).

Perhaps with that change in mind, Paul Lancaster of Plan Digital UK has declared 11/11/11 as No Email Day. Join me in joining his Facebook group/page and by letting email alone on that special day. You’ll be glad you did.

Paul Lancaster respects email and sees it as vital. I don’t endorse that view, but I do endorse 11/11/11 as #NoEMail Day.