Email Etiquette? New Technologies Change Everything.

40 years ago.... phone etiquette
20 years ago.... fax etiquette
10 years ago.... email etiquette

what now?


We are into the days of blogs and social networking sites. It is a time where, instead of waiting for news and information to come to you, you go out and find it. We are at a point where information is so easy to come by, that pieces of it can be overlooked or bypassed. This is where blogging and social networking come in handy. If something you find is of interest, you can blog it or link to it. Other people that are linked to you or that have access to your site are now made aware of this piece of information. This being said, there are a new set of e-mail etiquette rules I would like to propose...


New Email Etiquette Rules: (Some have always existed, and some are new)

1. Stories (touching, funny, gory) are fun to read sometimes, but not when you receive 20 of them a day. Instead, blog these into a miscellaneous category on your site and tell your friends to check it regularly. Most blogs and social networking sites allow people to subscribe to your site so they can receive notifications when you add something.
2. Chain e-mails that tell you that you will have good luck/bad luck depending on how many people you send it to are an absolute NO-NO! (pardon the all-caps.) No matter the content, this incentive keeps the vicious cycle going. In one year, I received the same chain e-mail more than 10 times (each from different people)! I didn't forward them to anyone, and guess what? No bad luck! Huh! Go figure. haha.
3. Attachments, whether they are pictures or videos, take up extra space and take a while to download. Most Blog sites and Social Networking sites allow you to post pictures and videos at will. Post them there and tell people to just check your site.
4. Work email address = work-related email. Personal email address = personal email. Most companies that issue you an email address have a policy that limits your email usage. It is wise to adhere to that policy. Do not give friends your work email address. A friend that sends a 2MB video to your work email address takes up 2MB of your company's server bandwidth. Then if you forward that to 10 or more other people in or out of your company, that is even more bandwidth that you are using up. This can slow the network down and slow productivity.
5. If you do decide to forward an email to a few family or friends, remove all the header and forward information from the previous emails. Most email programs or services will allow you to edit the original email after choosing to reply or forward an email. Use this advantage to remove all the non-contextual gibberish. This way, your friends don't have to sift through 5 pages of forwarding information before they get to the main content.

So there they are. In conclusion, with the invasion of free blog sites and social networking sites, there is no more need of those pesky forwards and attachments. So... what are these sites that I speak of? Well, you most likely already know about sites like this. The most popular are as follows:

• Blog Sites: blogger.com (the one I use), xanga.com, livejournal.com, etc.
• Social Networking: MySpace.com, facebook.com, friendster.com, etc.

There are many many many more, but those are the most popular that came to my mind. For a list of more, click here.