3 ms·
Email is great because everyone can use the protocol in the way they want to. If you really want real-time email, it can be built. I'd prefer not to open that
by alexkiwi 16y ago
Email is great because everyone can use the protocol in the way they want to. If you really want real-time email, it can be built.
I'd prefer not to open that box, it took me years of fortifying my gmail filter defenses, playing around with Tim Ferriss style auto-responders, and using 3 sentenc.es before I found Inbox Zero zen.
Realtime e-mail could be great for certain purposes such as customer service, but I hope that it never become the personal norm.
- mikemol 16y agoLow-latency email carrying is awesomely variable. It's asynchronous, and I can reply quickly if I want to. If I don't want to (such as if a fast response is more a waste of time, or encouraging unnecessary queries), I can hold off for an hour or two without annoying most people. I've been accused of turning email into instance-messaging, if the email service is low-latency enough. GMail's typical turnaround for me is under a minute, sometimes under 30 seconds, if the response doesn't need to be extensive. (It usually doesn't.) Thanks to presence notification and expectation of synchronous communication, IM tends to be very synchronous, and almost as draining and disruptive as phone calls.