You've Got Mail!
"I turn on my computer. I wait impatiently as it connects. I go online, and my breath catches in my chest until I hear three little words: You've got mail."
Hello everyone! Despite what the above photo, title and quote may suggest this blog post is not about a fun little 90's movie starring America's sweethearts Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan (although I really like that movie). So if that's what you were thinking turn back now.
I was watching this movie the other day and I was thinking about how deeply the experience of getting email has changed. I remember when getting email was a huge deal. Sometimes it would be one of the most exciting things you do in a day. You would go down to your computer, connect to the Internet using your state of the art 56k modem and voila you hear those three magic words (if you had AOL) "You've Got Mail".
Back then there was almost a sense of euphoria when you checked your mail. You couldn't wait to see the emails come pouring in. Maybe it was a relative from across the country checking in, or maybe it was your next door neighbor sending you a video attachment of a monkey taking a whiff of his finger after picking it's butt - it didn't matter because you were still so amazed that such instant communication was possible.
Today email is kind of a nuisance. Why? Because the end user has no control over what you receive. On any given day I can have half a dozen emails I don't want. It could be spam or bacon (spam you sign up for) either way I don`t want my phone to light up every time it lands in my inbox. This is why services like MSN Instant Messenger, Skype and eventually social networking and text messaging have largely taken over or email.
With these new services the user could choose to receive messages and only be in contact with people you want to be in contact with,
Sometimes I wish however that we could all go back in time to when things were simpler and we were all so impressed by email and animated GIFS.
Sorry I was so late with this rambling but as always I hope you enjoyed it and you found your time on this site to be time (and bandwidth) well wasted.
