and your point is? so the horse was the original car, but who uses a horse to get from the suburbs to manhattan?

the kids are right when they said, though their quote was blown out of proportion, "email is dead." email is dead in terms of social networking.

furthermore, how can you overlook the importance of the bbs in the earlier times of the internet? to me that is THE ORIGINAL social networking app. imagine the excitement of your computer dialing up to the local bbs and chatting away about who knows what. and what about usenet?

what the problem is that, when people make such comments, the denial of what technology is about: it is about making the old, obsolete and the new, old.

email today is not so much about "keeping in touch", why, when i have linkedin and facebook and myspace to do that? it's about business and about advertisement. email, like radio and the television, is quickly becoming a one-way source of information. of course, it may be that it will never become exclusively a one-way channel (seeing the kind of stronghold the business world has on it for communication), but it's purpose has certainly become of less importance in terms of "socialization" through the internet and will continue follow this trend.

mr. engler, and the person at the conference, are mistaken.

Bill, just read through your Churchillian posts--great stuff. Keep up the good work. I would love it if you could set up an e-mail alert whenever you post so I can get these hot off the virtual press. Best.