Why email is broken and what we can do to fix it

Email is not broken.<p>It does what it does perfectly.<p>All these calls for to-do functionality, events planning, etc. Nobody needs it except the writers of these articles. Just use other applications for it. We don't need to shake up email just because you want to.

I'd argue that the folder hierarchy that most email clients and organizational processes use is fundamentally flawed as well.<p>Information doesn't exist in one place and shouldn't be confined to a single folder. Tagging fixes this.

Facebook groups, Asana, Fetchnotes, etc are great for cases where you can get a whole team/group/family on one or a couple communication platforms. It's much harder to get your friends to adopt a new tool, like the different pre-iMessage BBM-like services, unless you can convince them they need it for a specific task/project, or the tool has a 'cool' value-add (Voxer-walkie talkie).

The candle/light bulb analogy is the wrong analogy. The correct one is the light socket/wall outlet analogy. When electricity was first run into homes, it was all about light. So houses would have screw in bulb sockets installed. As more useful electric devices became available, people screwed adapters into the light sockets to run their devices. What they really needed were wall outlets (the Edison plugs we have in the US today).<p>Wall outlets didn't kill the need for light sockets, they simply split off certain functionality that wasn't best served by those sockets, because those sockets were never designed for that purpose. Light bulbs killed the candle (except emergency, devotional, and mood lighting) and I don't thing todo, calendar, task management apps will kill email, but simply return it to it original, more limited purpose.

Some good points but bad subject line. Email is the one non-broken constant I've used continuously. I started out using email, gopher, archie, usenet. Now, in the addition to "general web use" I'm still using email and, well, not much else. I'm sure there are plenty of people making good use of notetaking and to-do list apps but don't confuse it with the fundamental non-brokenness of email.

This again...

I would also say TODO lists are broken. Would love to hear your thoughts on that.

Why email is broken: author doesn't know how to organize himself<p>What we can do to fix it: use author's commercial web site<p>...great, thanks