
What the Heck is Electronic Mail? - raganwald
http://www.globalnerdy.com/2009/04/22/what-the-heck-is-electronic-mail/
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raganwald
Okay, okay, this may "amuse" hackers but is it _interesting?_ The reason I
found it provocative is that it reminds me of a huge challenge we face when
introducing new ideas outside of the startup echo chamber.

Even something that seems obvious like email at one time seemed mysterious.
Why would anyone besides a nerd have wanted it in 1985? It was feature-poor
compared to paper and most people had never heard of it. If few of your
friends and business contacts had email, why would you want it?

What are we inventing today? And how will we explain it to the rest of the
world?

~~~
mileszs
This link is only interesting when coupled with your comment. I clicked the
comments link with a head full of steam, itching to justify flagging the post
due to lack of content or some other such excuse.

The almost-a-cliche-easy example is Twitter: I have never been able to explain
Twitter sufficiently to those who do not follow web tech closely. Suddenly,
Oprah is banging out tweets in capital letters, and Shaq is correcting her
'netiquette. What happened?

~~~
nuclear_eclipse
I think the most frustrating part about grasping Twitter is it's character
limit. People are perfectly happy to accept a character limit on text
messages, but (like myself) can't fathom why anyone would be interested in
Twitter with such a horrible limit like that. It's an interesting dichotomy.

~~~
mileszs
It is my opinion that the limit forces those who would be verbose to get to
the point. It's nearly mandating conciseness. I tend to be very 'wordy', so I
think it's a good thing for me (or, for those who would follow me). Far from
horrible, it's actually a plus for Twitter, I think.

