Has Spam Killed Email? Is RSS Its Replacement?
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FWIW, I'm leaning toward "not yet, but we're getting close" on both counts.
Here's a point-counterpoint on the death of email as a good means of communication.
I doubt many people want to change that form of communication. I expect email to be saved once legislation is passed to ban spam. And lots of blacklisting of spammer ISPs.
Posted by: O'dell on June 14, 2004 9:43 PM | permalinkI don't understand. How is RSS a replacement for email?
Even thought they invented the newspaper, I still get postal mail...
Posted by: David Kearns on June 14, 2004 9:51 PM | permalinkO'dell:
IP addresses can be spoofed; legislation won't affect email from overseas.
David:
I don't see e-mail going the way of Usenet (then again, I still read comp.lang.* stuff on-and-off).
However, I think it's use as a one-size-fits-all communications solution (personal messages, intra-comany communications, newsletter subscriptions, e-commerce notifications, file transfer, etc.) is likely to change as its weaknesses get exploited worse and worse. (How many African military widow and penis enlargement scams have you gotten in the post? Now imagine if stamps were free.)
I don't think email will disappear. But RSS is a safer (less spam, less security risk) medium for many purposes.
Posted by: Joe Grossberg on June 14, 2004 10:16 PM | permalinkI think that the proper statement should be that RSS will kill mailing lists.
The ironic thing is, my RSS reader is a server that emails me each story that gets aggregated...
Posted by: David Kearns on June 15, 2004 6:23 AM | permalinkWhat about IPv6? I thought I read that it was going to make spoofing impossible, as well as helping to fight DoS attacks.
Posted by: O'dell on June 15, 2004 9:07 AM | permalinkNo more comments! Either someone has violated Godwin's Law, I'm tired of the discussion or, most likely, the ten-week window has closed. You can, however, contact me through email.