Email sucks!! And other musings on mediums
Thoughts on the avenues that channel our lives. (#Day29)
A simply reality shapes our day to day reality.
There are mediums — such as iPhone apps, websites, ShapChat, movies, radio, VR, Bitcoin, and television — many of them, which rule us.
Mediums — what are they? Who owns them?
An underlying reality exists around the mediums we use: Code or be coded; there is no escaping this; the mediums we use are the literal product of the minds of others.
Some Medium-s are powerful, others are not.
Email, for one, sucks in a lot of ways…
One thing I’ve noticed from putting stress tests on Facebook, Facebook Messenger, and Medium:
Facebook, given it’s scale and universal server architecture and design, enables a very reliable user experience. Every time you send a Facebook friend request it is indeed sent.
Unlike email, there is no need to double-check on Facebook Messenger. This is fundamentally different than what our parent’s generation experienced. A fully global cross platform communication system — this is what makes Snapchat and Whatsapp worth billions…while email is splintered across organizations and, for many people, broken.
On Facebook, you can just post things and they actually-work. Like, I used to be paranoid that my messages wouldn’t get through, somehow, like olden-age email. They do, they make it to the other end of the portal — even in technologically and psychologically stressed situations.
These mediums, all of them, are truly amazing.
As an example of how much multi-tasking modern Mediums enable — The other day I was commenting on posts in Hackathon Hackers fervently from both my phone and computer. During this, I was also editing posts on Medium while multi-tasking for Bitcoinist sales efforts, and admiring Medium’s version control procedures the entire time (the secrets are hidden in their URLs).
Furthermore, I’ve noticed that when I send an email overseas, it takes a split second longer to go through.
This doesn’t happen with Facebook Messenger; there’s no bounce back or guessing. With email, that bounce back may not happen right away, too. For example, the other day I sent an email to Tim Cook of Apple; at first, it appeared to go through okay. It then bounced back hours later.
My definition of “mediums” expands beyond technological interfaces.
Cars are a medium. They take humans from point-A to point-B.
Directions, the letters and words that make them up, as well as the Google Map interfaces that we read them on, are a medium for navigation. One which has morphed significantly. Self driving cars will be an enhanced and insane version of this medium. Mom asked if they knew where they were going, and they responded, “We’re just gonna put it in the GPS and hope for the best”. We rely on our Mediums all the time.
Cities, such as New York City, are a medium.
The postal service we rely on is a medium, too. Sometimes, the message gets through — other times, it does not… For example, the United States mail system is much more reliable than the United Kingdom’s mail system. Just ask Jamie, my friend in London who’s still waiting for his birthday gift sent out of Atlanta.
Moreover, mediums challenge how our minds work. Do you ever put your phone away before bed, and think, “How did this work so well, how did the messages and texts I sent find their way through time and space and across the planet, even when I was drunk?” Google Documents works the same way.
The internet is a Medium, too.
On Tuesday, I was watching English Premier League soccer in HD (West Ham vs. Aston Villa in yellow kits) while peeing. Also juggling Facebook Messenger and texts during this medium-ific experience. This — all of this — is fundamentally different than even 10 years ago.
Remember when texting first started??
Texts — they don’t always go through, either. Especially in group threads. Non-consistent server architecture and back-end design are, once again, problematic for universal medium experiences.
Each chat app is a medium. Each has its own culture and norms. Each has its own behaviors that it dictates, through features and design.
Mediums today, in 2016, are insane. We can get in contact with anyone with a social media presence, connection to a internet server, or email. Not everyone has internalized this fully…. …yet.
To protect ourselves, it’s important to put a stress test on mediums. That way, in an actual-situation of emergency, we know what they’re capable of (see Bitcoin stress test from late 2015).
Snapchat is THE most powerful medium. It gives relatively-full privacy (other than on Snapchat’s servers), and forces you to be fully on that screen when in use. Theirs little temptation to jump on GroupMe while Snapping.
Your iPhone Notepad: it automatically syncs with the MacBook Notepad. Same situation with iPhoto and the iCloud. This simplicity and universality is great for parents and kids. All are a part of the Apple medium, too.
The outlet in the wall is a medium as well. One with a very specific goal.
Hustlers switch between mediums all the time.
I’ve been doing so much at once, I can’t even remember it all anymore.
Through all of this madness — remember —
the Medium is the message.