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0 pointsbad_user15y ago0 comments

> It's unfortunate, but it's the way the world is today.

You're saying it as if it's a bad thing.

Email is asynchronous. IM and SMS are disruptive.

And on IM versus SMS, the sender of a SMS usually doesn't know if the recipient received the message, while the default behavior of IM is to notify your contacts list if you're online.

These are different mediums people use for different kinds of communication / contacts.

But I don't expect Facebook to get this, especially considering their total disregard of the way people interact with one another. It's a wonder they are number #1, but I guess the alternatives sucked a lot more.

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kristiandupont15y ago

I agree with the different mediums part of your comment but I fail to see how fb is "disregarding" the way people interact with one another. Clearly, they understand that very well and this is the primary reason for their success?

v2115y ago

"the sender of a SMS usually doesn't know if the recipient received the message" - is this true? Delivery reports are pretty reliable with SMS. I know some people use them and some don't but I'd be curious to see the figures. Email, by contrast, hasn't got any reports that any decent human being would use. And IM is somewhat different again, in that it broadcasts availability, as opposed to receipt.

But yes - different methods of communication have different semantics, as Marshal McLuhan never said. But it is nice to group them, and to be able to seamlessly transfer between them. No doubt I'd love Google Chat's "This person is now offline. Click here to send a SMS" if they had any support for anywhere but the States. And I look forward to the Sense UI concept of crossing the streams coming to stock Android so I can use it myself.

bad_userOP15y ago

> Delivery reports are pretty reliable with SMS

It depends on the carrier and on the sender ... most people don't get delivery reports back.

> Email, by contrast, hasn't got any reports that any decent human being would use

Yes it has, you can embed tracking pixels in it. Not really reliable though.

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