Email: the social network of last resort?
I have two old friends who email all their friends in one BCCed mass an update of their lives about once a month on average. One works for a large consumer packaged goods company and the other is a deployed Marine. They don’t know each other well, and I doubt they’re on or even aware of each other’s list.
The emails cover updates on their work and personal lives, including stories about their coworkers and daily battles — literal and figurative. The kind of stuff you’d tell any good friend on the phone, or maybe even a friend of a friend you met at a party. But because of their jobs, they can’t take the step many of us entrepreneurs have taken in being a little more public.
And to be fair, even those of us who blog and tweet need to hold back a lot of personal stuff and work details.
I appreciate the emails. It lets me keep up with their lives even if we go a while without a phone call or one-on-one email. And when we do talk we don’t have to catch up on all the details and can jump straight into meatier topics.
Both friends are on Facebook and one had a blog in the past. But if they distributed the updates on Facebook they’d have to be very careful about locking down the privacy, which is complicated.
One of these friends told me email works particularly well because when she feels a friend is dropping off the map, she doesn’t have to unfriend them. She just removes them from the email list. And for all dropped friend knows, the emails stopped for everyone.
These regular mass emails to friends make a lot of sense when you think about it. It’s almost surprising that more people don’t do it. Yet I don’t do it myself.
I’m wondering if anyone else knows of people doing this, and if it’s actually a widespread human activity. If you have stories let me know.
