Over the years the web and related technologies have evolved fairly rapidly. However, one technology seams hopelessly stuck in 1990: email. Email really hasn’t changed much since it’s inception. Sometimes I wish more features existed than the basic recipient, subject, message paradigm has to offer.

Here is my wish list:

1) Multiple Bodies - it would be nice to be able to send a message to a group, but have some text only be visible to specific people. Right now this requires sending two separate messages, even if only a small difference in text is needed.

2) This Email Has Changed - when you call a phone number that has changed a pleasant voice notifies you of the new number. I would like the equivalent for email. This could be very handy when retiring an old address.

3) Enhanced Security - there are a few tools that enhance the security of your messages, but since they are not built into the protocol few users use them. I would like to be able to send messages that can’t be forwarded, viewed after a certain date, or require a password to open. Email could be used for so much more if it was a secure means of communication.

Email is truly the killer app of the Internet, but in the age of advanced software and hardware it sure is showing its age.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 26th, 2007 at 10:22 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.