Comments on: Blogs vs. email

By: Dave

Dave — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 08:18:32 +0000

Paul H – feel free to use my comments to get your thoughts online! That in itself is a good example of why blogs are better at developing public conversations than email.

Paul W – you are right, it has its place. But I do wonder sometimes (not often!) that we get carried away with the new media stuff, forgetting that not many people are up to speed with these developments. I do think that email needs to be built into any interactive online project, to ensure that as many people as possible can be involved.

Of course, Digita Mentors could soon have everyone blogging and wiki-ing away like mad!

By: Paul Webster

Paul Webster — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 20:58:30 +0000

I always go back to Paul Caplan’s party analogy (this really does fit so many places!) and then I extend …

You use mail to invite people to the party, but when your guests arrive in the room and are passing round the cheese and pineapple on a stick you have conversations … you don’t pass round written notes to people one at a time for them to add a bit and pass on to the next person (well not at the parties I attend!).

Email has its place, most definately. But so does a wiki, a blog, twittering etc etc

By: Paul H

Paul H — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 11:27:52 +0000

I don’t mind being notified by email that someone is following me on Twitter, or someone wanted to meet me at 2gether08, in fact I quite like it. Email is quite good at that, getting my attention when I’m at my desk trying to do something else. But it is just that – electronic mail – one way of getting some information from one person to another person (or a group of people, that’s when it starts getting messy). It’s not very searchable even when I am logged into it, I can’t link to it or reference it without forwarding it on and it only goes to the people I send it to – as you say it can’t be tapped into from people outside my email list.

It’s just one way of carrying a message (and there are others like RSS which suit some people better or worse) and can help people to collaborate by letting them know what is going on, but just because it carries the message does not mean that it is the message or indeed the platform.

By blogging (the example in this case), all that good stuff can be read, searched, remixed, commented upon, referenced, archived, tagged (and even sent out by email if you so wish) but Jason I’m afraid you’re you’re wrong, but I won’t be emailing you to tell you.

PS. I’m turning into a serial commenter here, but as someone who can’t be bothered to blog, commenting on someone elses crafted words is much easier.