E-mail is the Net's killer app. According to Forrester Research (FORR), 88 percent of Net users rank e-mail as their most frequent online activity. At last count, there were more than 150 million inboxes worldwide. E-mail has become a fundamental communications platform - and it's going to become far more powerful.
The telephone began as a simple communications device. Over time, complex applications like voice-mail, caller ID and interactive voice response came along, which created enormous new business opportunities. Now the same thing is happening to e-mail.
Heavy e-mailers recognize that their inbox is as much a database of contact information, documents, news and events as it is a place to store messages. With the proliferation of e-commerce, bill presentment, online direct marketing, digital music and digital photography, more of our personal and business information will be delivered via e-mail. Managing all that data will become a big factor in the way e-mail applications evolve.
Wouldn't it be useful if Microsoft (MSFT) Outlook were smart enough to know that confirmation messages from Amazon.com (AMZN) or Buy.com should be dropped into a shopping folder? Or that messages from people in your address book should be brought to your attention in ways that differ from messages from solicitors? While Outlook can do some basic categorization and you can build filters that direct specific messages to defined folders, there is much more to come.
That's the promise of unified-messaging services like Onebox, uReach and Portico, which each offer a single place to check voice, text and fax messages. But imagine every bill, letter, fax, photo, document or file being routed to a single place - your inbox. Can you think of a better way to handle multiple document formats or subject categories?
The leading challenger to e-mail's dominance in content management is the "metaportal." These sites, like ezLogin, aggregate data from disparate Web sites and give people a single viewpoint into their Yahoo (YHOO) mail, E-Trade portfolios and eBay (EBAY) auctions. While these sites are in some ways compelling, metaportals are unlikely to emerge as central repositories for managing all manner of digital data. E-mail is simply a more flexible medium than HTML for moving, searching and extracting information.
Mailcentric services are emerging that embrace this idea. One example is Evite.com, a free Web service that provides event organizers a way to manage distribution and response to e-mail invitations. It also provides invitees with details of the event, such as who will attend and where it's being held. And Respond.com lets consumers looking for particular goods or services get e-mail bids from multiple vendors. Expect to see more data-management applications like these.
The growth of wireless devices is also driving the management of content through e-mail. The bandwidth limitations facing PCS and short-messaging services are boosting services like AvantGo and GoAmerica, which strip down Web content to facilitate delivery to wireless devices. But early adopters of the Palm VII or RIM's BlackBerry will be the first to agree receiving e-mailed CNN headlines is far more efficient than sending a wireless request for a pared-down Web page. On the corporate side, e-mail application service providers like Kana and Critical Path are sending digital content to consumer inboxes. Kana, for example, offers firms a way to manage loyalty campaigns with personalized direct e-mail programs that learn from customer interactions. Imagine receiving an e-mail from Williams-Sonoma (WSM) tailored to your interest in breadmaking.
Enterprise software companies likewise are creating applications that embrace e-mail rather than continue to force users into proprietary document-management or workflow systems. Consider a consultant who works for multiple companies. A single inbox to transfer documents and communicate with clients is more efficient than using each client's individual workflow app. Companies like Tumbleweed are working to solve this problem with document-sharing systems based on e-mail. In fact, emerging standards may enable e-mail to become the way documents are managed within the network.
Managing data with e-mail will be far more efficient than the mess of letters, faxes, bills, photos and CDs we contend with today. As it becomes the de facto standard for the distribution of content of every kind, and as mailcentric apps emerge that deliver and manage this content, the medium will become even more important than it already is.
