Some nostalgia, and some looking around at the present and future. Fast Company put this list [1] together for the 25th anniversary of ListServ, perhaps the first mailing list software.
I think that email is still the least-common-denominator glue that holds the rest of the net together. For example: It is unclear just how far and fast sites like Facebook and Twitter would've grown without teh humble email notification. Also, I still consider mailing lists as one of the more useful and engaging ways to use the net. Some historical context in the form of a couple of articles: David Bennahum's classic piece on mailing lists from 1997 [2], and silklister Fred Noronha's attempt to create a directory of Indian mailing lists [3] from a decade ago. Thoughts? Udhay [1] http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/156/25th-anniversary-of-listserv [2] http://www.memex.org/lists.html [3] http://wikiwikiweb.de/FrederickNoronha/Why%20Mailing%20Lists%20Make%20Sense _________________________________________________________ Worldwide email accounts 1989 | 1.8 million 1996 | 100 million 2010 | 3 billion In 2010, email use by... Seniors + 28% & -59% Teens The average businessperson sends 33 emails each day. 89% of all sent emails are spam, the majority of which are pharmaceutical promotions. In 1985, 90% of all emails were business related. Today, just 8% are business related. 90% | 1985 8% | 2011 In 2010, there were... 107 trillion emails sent 170 billion pieces of mail sent 36 billion photos shared on Facebook 25 billion tweets posted Users Facebook 2004 | 1 million 2010 | 600 million AOL 2004 | 23 million 2010 | 4 million -- ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))
