Email is indeed one of those dead things that just keeps on going because the network effect driving it is so strong. Most improvements to email have taken pla

Email is indeed one of those dead things that just keeps on going because the network effect driving it is so strong. Most improvements to email have taken place in walled gardens like Facebook and enterprise products like Exchange and do not benefit everybody. Google Wave incorporated some of these ideas and even combined mail and IM into one communication medium, but alas it never took off. A viable replacement needs to: 1. be an open protocol 2. do everything email can do and more 3. be open to future enhancements 4. play nice with the current email infrastructure 5. be easy to setup/install/administer It's more of a marketing problem than a technical problem. We already know how to help people communicate. We need to create something worth adopting over email.