

Google+ will replace email, period. - frafdez
http://frafdez.posterous.com/google-will-replace-email-period

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mtogo
"Everyone look, <New, unproven technology> will replace <Popular, proven
technology>!"

The problem is it never does actually replace the proven technology. Makes for
a good blog post, though.

~~~
frafdez
I think it could. Now with Oauth becoming more and more of a standard for
signing up/in to sites and the wide adoption of RESTful API used for
messaging, it could work.

Glad you liked the post.

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pavel_lishin
> Oauth becoming more and more of a standard for signing up/in to sites

I think I actually see that less than I did a few years ago. OAuth was hard to
implement, and not that easy to use, so a lot of people got turned off by it.

I'm curious to see where BrowserID will go.

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pavel_lishin
> Most people realize that email is currently flawed. There’s too much of it.
> It’s an endless stream that is nonstop, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Wow, this is _exactly_ what I thought about my Facebook stream. Too much
garbage that I cannot easily filter out, like I can e-mail.

For sending quick notes to my mom, or even my coworkers, maybe. But what about
using e-mail as an identity when signing up somewhere? What about creating
throwaway accounts? (e.g., sendmespam@lishin.org) What about creating accounts
for my business to contact customers? (e.g., donotreply@cannedgoat.com)

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frafdez
Canned goat might actually taste pretty good. :) You might have something
there. Kidding aside, why not ask Google to add temp accounts associated to a
main account? I would love to have temp emails/identities that I can create
and reply to from only one account. Like Visa or MasterCard have temp credit
card numbers. Then when I'm done, just toss them out. Maybe you could
associate an email/identity to a circle. I think it's early but I don't see
many roadblocks.

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pavel_lishin
Sure, all the problems I listed are solvable. In fact, they've already been
solved - by e-mail.

The bitching about having to sort e-mails and manually add filters? You have
to manually add people to circles, too. And what happens when someone who's
not in one of your circles shares something with you? At least currently,
there's no way to filter them based on anything.

"But we can just add filters to Google+!"

We already have filters in e-mail.

I feel like I sound like a grizzled old man ("we used to code uphill both ways
in the snow!") but I really don't understand how G+ is superior to e-mail.

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frafdez
You've got good points, but I think Google plus ties alot of functionality
into one service, or at least it seems like that is the direction they are
taking. Imagine when you can do more than email can today. Share google docs
while "huddling" then turn around and post something interesting you found to
everyone. I'm not saying it's the be all end all, but it's a step in the right
direction.

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ori_b
Google+. Gmail. They can be integrated.

~~~
frafdez
+1

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mooism2
If Google+ was going to replace e-mail on account of its circles, then
LiveJournal would have replaced e-mail a decade ago, thanks to its friends-
filtering.

~~~
frafdez
A little different this time around. API's weren't as popular as they are now.

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cryos
It lacks the fact that I can't communicate (even with Facebook's penetration)
to probably a 25% of my friends.

Atleast 50% of my friends don't really get into the social networking. Either
not having accounts or checking it once a week/month. I would say 95% of the
people I now have email addresses and I can communicate with them.

When ever I see stats its always x amount of people use this per month. And I
thinks for the same reason that exists in my friends. They don't care to much
for that much about these sites.

I would guess over 90% of the content on FB is from 10% of my friends. The
rest aren't so excited about it. So far none of my friends are really using
Google+, and the ones that are I could say less about the content they are
posting.

So I think you are misguided, and are under estimating how little interest a
business is going to have towards storing there business data on what for many
(including several of my own products) is a competitors system.

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frafdez
I think you misunderstood the point of the post, it's not that G+ will change
everything today. It won't. It can't. It just started and most of my friends
aren't on it either, but the technology and the UI they have come up with is
quite enviable and we may be seeing the future of electronic communication. G+
is very well positioned to change email given the popularity of Gmail. Forgive
my seemingly impetuous post, but I think we may be seeing the future.

~~~
cryos
Except for the obviously flaw where Gmails isn't as popular as you suggest.
Having a lot less users than either Yahoo mail or Hotmail. Heres two links to
verify that statement (second from google itself):

<http://www.campaignmonitor.com/stats/email-clients/>

[https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-uhu-
fZwXC60/Th6LbbZFv_I/A...](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-uhu-
fZwXC60/Th6LbbZFv_I/AAAAAAAAAck/Lwy-DsSRT_w/s720/Slide32.jpg)

I'm not saying change isn't coming. I just don't think a Google social network
will be it. Hell even there 18 million user announcement is quite average...
thats under 10% of gmail users.

Considering MS has been spotted toying with implementing Social networks
directly in Windows 8 (and with their share of FaceBook + Windows Live +
Desktop OS we are talking massive users base).

A decent implementation could destroy all competition. The only ray of light
there is MS history of failure.

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goo
I think people regularly underestimate the inertial power of established
technologies. Once something gets built into a technology stack, it becomes
hard to change, even when you have complete control of your stack. When it is
built into the general "stack" of technology and culture at large, it becomes
monumental to shift it even slightly.

Coincidentally, I believe that this will be the greatest drag on the
"singularity"-- legacy systems, and the cultural atmosphere which stifles the
adoption of alternatives.

~~~
frafdez
I agree, but systems are disrupted everyday. Look at banking and how paypal,
square and others have changed the way we bank. Email will change. Not
everyone will stop using it, but things will change. Maybe not so soon with G+

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sixtofour
Email is free and open. Anyone can implement email according to standards, and
differentiate their service any way they want. You don't have to have a gmail
or facebook or twitter or whatever account to use email; you just need an
account somewhere. You do need one of those accounts to use gmail/plus,
facebook, twitter etc.

If G+ is replaced by something as open as email, implementable by anyone, then
yeah, maybe. But not until.

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frafdez
Understood, but remember that the mass market doesn't care about open
standards. They care about a tool that works for them. Open Office isn't used
much by the mass market, but Google Apps is. The more someone uses the
service, the greater the probability that someone will come around and
standardize the protocol. But, I agree it may take a while.

~~~
sixtofour
Right. I'm not talking about the public caring about open standards though,
what I mean is anyone at all can run an email server, and they all
interoperate, so everyone's email talks to everyone else's. The public doesn't
know how that happens, but the utility of email between everyone in the world
is much greater because of that. No one wonders if anyone's email can talk to
each other.

Email, obviously, is one pro example of what I'm talking about. A con example
is your Docs example, you only get that on Google (and maybe MS is in early
days, I don't pay too much attention to them), and yet it is counted in the
"success" column, I think.

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tincholio
I somehow don't see big companies ditching Exchange for G+...

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frafdez
You might be right, but there are alot of small and mid size companies that
solely use google apps for everything. This isn't that big of a stretch. If
people adopt it, then MS will surely come up with their own solution. Look at
what they had to do to compete with Google apps.

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uvTwitch
No, no, no, you're thinking of Wave. Google -Wave- will replace email.
Remember?

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frafdez
You know, I forgot :)

