PCWorld: "The use of e-mail may persist in corporations as a project collaboration tool to keep team members in the loop, but it's hardly the best route given individuals are often accidentally left off distribution lists, said a member of the open source TikiWiki Community.

"E-mail doesn't scale, it's not optimal, it's not efficient," said Marc Laporte, who is also the president of Avantech.net, a Montreal-based developer of collaborative TikiWiki-centric applications."

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Finally, some real news about the fate of Thunderbird. David Ascher, Mozilla Messaging CEO, discusses the details in his blog:

Today we’ve announced the launch of Mozilla Messaging, the new name for the entity I’ve been calling MailCo on this blog. As promised, it’s a new subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation, focused on email and internet communications. We’ve put up the essential information about the organization on the website, but I have more room for background here.

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Laura Scott posted her 9 best practices and things to avoid when it comes to e-mail. We followed some of these rules a decade ago, but a good reminder is always appreciated. Laura doesn't mention anything about not using all CAPS in an e-mail and I assume that's because if you don't know that rule by now...nine rules is beyond your grasp.

My favorite rule to follow is number 3:

Write your response above the quoted text.

I don't think I'm alone when I say I don't like having to scroll down just to read what you have written. I already know what I wrote -- and if I don't remember, I can scroll down to look. When you deal with over 100 real emails a day, this becomes all the more important.

Don't make me scroll! Please!

I've always been unsure where to place the quoted text in an e-mail. If I recall correctly, doesn't (didn't) Thunderbird place the quote above text by default? I'm sure it's Mozilla's fault as to why I'm so confused...

"The sense of loss I feel about the decline of e-mail has less to do with how we communicate than with what
we communicate. The means by which we deliver a message affects its
content. While the rise of the BlackBerry has proven that e-mail can be
adapted for fast-burst communiqués, the medium is best-suited for
longer musings. As opposed to instant messaging, e-mail provides the
breathing room to contemplate what we're writing and express nuanced
thoughts."

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"The result is that Mozilla is launching a new effort to improve email and internet communications. We will increase our investment and focus on our current email client -- Thunderbird -- and on innovations in the email and communications areas. We are doing so by creating a new organization with this as its sole focus and committing resources to this organization. The new organization doesn't have a name yet, so I'll call it MailCo here. MailCo will be part of the Mozilla Foundation and will serve the public benefit mission of the Mozilla Foundation. (Technically, it will be a wholly owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation, just like the Mozilla Corporation.)"

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"Where do people spend their days? In e-mail, IM and on the phone. Yet most CRM, ECM, ERP, etc., systems don't really account for this. It strikes me that the biggest product for Microsoft going forward shouldn't be Sharepoint, which requires extra work, but rather Exchange/Outlook, which is where most people spend their time, anyway."

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"A while back I wrote a post speculating about the collaboration technologies today’s college students will expect to use when they enter the workforce. I guessed that today’s collegians will want to continue their use of social networking tools on the job—that they won’t consider these tools to be only suitable for ‘play time,’ but rather as important (integral?) parts of their day. More recently, I wrote a couple posts about Facebook, the social networking site that’s become wildly popular on many college campuses and is now penetrating the rest of society. "

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