Skype Journal: From email to IM, and onward
November 12, 2006 01:22 PMLast month I came across my mother's stash of "we're having a be-in party" stationary, left over from the early 1970s. Those cards were a carry over from the 1940s and 1950s when my mother grew up. The formal etiquette of mailing and invite and RSVPing became kitsch before it became corny then classic then retro.
danah boyd: what i mean when i say "email is dead" in reference to teens.
"I'm part of the generation caught between email and IM where IM feels more natural but most of the folks just a little older than me refuse to use IM so i'm stuck dealing with email. Today's teens are stuck between IM, MySpace/Facebook, and SMS. There's another transition going on which is why there's no clean one place. IM replaced email for quite a few years but now things are in flux again. Still, no matter what, email is not regaining beloved ground."
Young people are more flexible in learning, and older people more easily adopt the tools and norms that feel familiar from their youth. There's more than one reason why computers have QWERTY keyboards; they made transferring skills from typewriters to computers feel familiar.
People also follow their cohort's lead when it comes to building social capital. Aren't most of your friends around your age? That's just the way social networks usually expand. So you're going to use the conversation and social coordination tools that dominate your social network, and your cohort.
Skype is riding this wave, of course. So it's interesting to watch Skype's founders stick a toe into another wave, social video, with The Venice Project. Are you too old to ride it?
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