Stop sharing things over email

June 20, 2007 / Filed under: Blogging, Email, RSS, Sharing, Content

I mean that in the nicest way possible.

I've spoken before about my inclination to get away from email as a whole. Even with extremely efficient programs like Gmail, I still despise the constant daily maintenance that email sheds on my life, due to it's overabundant nature.

To be fair, email is still useful as a direct form of communication, but I've realized that the majority of my incoming email¹ is "shared email," which are messages that the sender intends to share with others, and therefore has sent to multiple recipients. It could be a link, some photos, or just random thoughts.

These days, it's so easy to start a photo or link blog, which allow readers to follow in their own ways, such as RSS.² Not to mention the content (photos, links) are much more presentable this way. Who wants to sift through email attachments, in order to find a photo?

I'm tired of "following" people via email. It's just not the right medium for it.

I don't want to receive email with photo attachments, links, etc - it's just extra work for me to either archive it somewhere else, or simply interact with the information.

Those photos from the family BBQ? Oh, that's right - they're buried in my Gmail somewhere. In order to share them, I have to either de-attach them and post them somewhere else (a somewhat time-consuming process), or attempt to forward them to other email recipients, which gets really ugly for photo attachments. (Sometimes the photos come across - sometimes they don't!)

I'm not saying there is a better solution than email (such as RSS), but I am saying that some content is simply not meant for email, and that includes things you are sharing.

Use the medium that's appropriate for the content.

Again, to be fair, email is still useful for direct, person-to-person communication.

¹ When I say "incoming email," I am referring to email that is personally sent to me, from another human being. This doesn't include the loads of spam, discuss lists, and confirmations/reminders/statuses.

² Services such as Twitter also allow you to follow people via SMS.

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