DISQUS

dmiessler.com | grep understanding: The Steam, Water, and Ice of Messaging: What Are the Real Differences Between Communication Mediums?

  • CarlM · 9 months ago
    My wife's gets her voicemails in email. The system at her place of work creates a sound file and sends it to her email address. She HATES this (mostly because it is not very high quality sound, but also I'm pretty sure that this is the ONLY way they can get voicemail now and since people don't generally listen to sound files on their computers with a headset, there is a certain lack of privacy in voicemail).

    PS As a university teacher, I've seen the evolution of student's attitudes about email here in the US. The attitude now is not far from what was apparently the case in South Korea in 2004. "email is for old people" .. they are addicted to their phones and texting .. but NOT to communication in all its forms. I think that the attitude may be one of convenience. From their perspective, email is not as convenient. From my perspective the opposite is true. I can get my email ANYWHERE. I NEVER have my phone make sounds (even vibrate) when I'm at work .. if I expect my students to have silent phones, it's best that I do the same. Also, I'm usually on the basement floor of a building for which AT&T reception is iffy even on the other floors. So, SMS is useless when I'm at work. email is not. If you want to reach me .. use email.

    Kids these days. :)
  • brooksgarrett · 9 months ago
    I was considering this topic the other day when I looked through Google Voice.

    Imagine iptables level control over your inputs. Hold and transcribe my inputs from Work, yet patch through all personal calls; unless I'm in private mode. Glad to see someone else sees the value in this idea!

    I'm liking your vision of the future, and I'm sure Godgle (Misspell intended) will be at the helm.
  • Michael Janke · 7 months ago
    Daniel -

    Great thoughts.

    I need to send a message to a person or group of people. I should be able to send it in whatever form and format is convenient to me at the time I'm sending it, and the recipients should be able to recieve it in whatever form & format is convenient to them at the time that they recieve it.

    Separate the message from the medium and the transport.