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	October 13, 2003

POLLARD'S NAIVE PROPOSAL TO SAVE E-MAIL There's a great debate in the blogosphere and among technologists about whether e-mail, much disparaged as the cause of productivity-sapping information overload, and a lightning rod for relentless and overwhelming spam merchants, is toast. Detractors say it is unrescuable, an inefficient use of time and an ineffectual means of communication. Supporters say it is the inevitable and powerful successor and replacement for snail mail, and must be redesigned to solve the problems that are preventing it from doing its critical job, which is (as shown on the chart above, from my earlier post) -- ubiquitous, fast, free 1-to-1 (or 1-to-a-few) (but short, non-critical, non-iterative) written communication. Like Clay Shirky, I love e-mail, warts and all. Some of the things that e-mail has allowed me, and those in my communities, to accomplish that no other medium could have achieved: Strengthened relationships and improved dialogue with readers of our Salon blogs. Pressured the Canadian government to fundamentally change its position on several key matters such as the Kyoto Accord. Enabled readers of my genealogy site to contact and exchange critical information with me. Enabled me to conduct targeted surveys of Salon bloggers. Enabled my high-school graduating class to organize an amazingly successful reunion. Helped establish and strengthen communication and collaboration among many loosly-knit communities of which I am a member. So I want to save e-mail. I think we need to either fix the problems plaguing e-mail (info overload, spam and abuse), or develop a substitute tool that fills the void its demise would leave. I think a possible answer to spam and info overload is a simple concept I call transient subdomains. Here's what I mean by this term: What do we do now when we get too much spam in a mailbox? We trash it and set up a new one. It's a one-step-ahead-of-the-enemy approach, but it's extravagent. Suppose instead of just assigning people an e-mail address, we assigned them an e-mail domain, with the ability to set up an infinite number of subdomains (or channels, if you prefer), each with a short and finite life. Example: Let's say my e-mail address is dave.pollard@hotmail.com (it isn't -- I use my real e-mail address sparingly in public because of spam etc.) Instead of junking this address when the spammers overwhelm it, suppose instead I had an e-mail domain: dave.pollard@hotmail.com/ and could create any subdomains I want, and abandon them when they've lost their value. So for example right now I'm interested in people's opinions on my novel-in-progress. With transient subdomains I could request them at  dave.pollard@hotmail.com/WhatCouldBe. And I occasionally help out Mark Hoback by co-editing Virtual Occoquan, the online periodical, and I would be able to communicate with potential authors of the next edition at dave.pollard@hotmail.com/VO28. And I'm collaborating on some Social Networking and Social Software developments with a small group of people in two distinct communities (one consisting of people I regularly meet in person, the second of people I've never met but who have expertise the first group lacks), so I could communicate with them under the subdomains dave.pollard@hotmail.com/SocialNet1 and dave.pollard@hotmail.com/SocialNet2. Not only do I think transient subdomains could save e-mail from lamentable extinction, I think the same concept applied to phone numbers could save us from telemarketers as well. OK, I'm done. I told you it was a naive proposal. Now I'm looking to those that understand the technical workings of e-mail and telephony to tell me whether it could work, technically. And for the twisted minds out there to tell me how the spammers could get around it. 11:12:25 AM  trackback []  comment []

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