Trends in Internet communications

I was first introduced to the Internet as a freshman at Purdue University back in 1988. There, I was given an email account and had access to computers that could access the Internet. Those computers had newsreaders that allowed me to access Usenet newsgroups. For a while, Email and Usenet were the two primary means of communications over the Internet.

The Web appeared in 1993, and obviously took off. But it didn't kill email or Usenet as communications tools, even as web-based versions of email and Usenet became popular. No, the death (or decline) of Usenet, I purport, was a result of the mass advertising and spam into the content channel. In other words, as more and more spam filled the channel, users found the medium less and less useful, and finally left altogether to "spamless" web-based message boards (which now are losing users to blogs). But the trigger was not the new medium; it was the decay of the old medium.

I submit that new "fads" are simply mediums that are free of the "crap" that eventually fills mediums as they mature. Put another way, it's not that these new communication mediums are functionally superior to older mechanism; rather, they simply haven't been poisoned yet.

Now Email is on a usage decline (I am basing this solely on my own observations and experiences). Between basic spam, graphic spam, the "hey forward this to everyone you know" messages, and the urban legends that make their way around the internet (don't get me started on that topic), email is becoming more of an annoyance than a tool. A colleague of mine at work mentioned that he heard people in Korea use email only as "legacy tools to keep in touch with their parents. They use IM and SMS to keep in touch with their friends." How funny - that's how I treat email. And if Skype turns out as good as I hope, I'll be chucking another junk medium out the window - my landline phone.

Podcasting has emerged over the last year as a new means of communication. I must say, it's great to have a medium not cluttered by junk...yet. Reminds me of the web back in '94-ish. It will gain steam for a little while, until someone figures out how to dump junk into the channel. Then on to the next great frontier. Isn't innovation great?

So? you're asking? I don't know. I guess I don't have a point. Just an observation from my castle on a cold March Saturday afternoon =)