HolesInTheNet, a leading Hebrew technology blog, asked its readers what service they would not be able to live without (Hebrew only. Sorry!). They offered the readers the following options:
- Gtalk/Gmail
- Live messenger/Hotmail
- ICQ
- Skype
- ynet (a leading Israeli news portal)
- Walla (another Israeli news portal)
- YouTube
- Google Reader
So what’s so interesting about it? The results*. They reflect the views of the readers, a rather technology-savvy crowd, but I think they are important to note:
What service you wouldn’t want to live without?
For the purpose of this post, I’ll take the liberal assumption that Gtalk/Gmail really means e-mail, and that Live messenger/Hotmail really means instant messaging (and forgive me in advance, if you’re offended in any way).
The first thing to do with the results, at least for me, is to check what people are most interested about when it comes to different types of services. So I bunched up similar services and got this graph:
What type of service you wouldn’t want to live without?
What do we really care about?
- Our email
- Our news aggregators
- Our social networks
And this is no random order: we care more about our email than we do about our social information. We care more about the RSS feeds we’re following than we do about the messaging service we are using.
What does that mean to me?
If I’m a “Skype”, I would be very worried. The “Skype”s have no choice but to add innovative services. But if the service providers will follow, the “Skype”s won’t last. As we simply don’t care who provides our communication services, we just want the services they provide.
So yes, service providers need to wake up, but they probably have enough time to do so. To be honest, service providers have more to worry about from Google than from Skype, when it comes to communication services.
PS – you are invited to share your views in this poll (in English, this time): what service do you feel you can’t live without:
* As this is a live poll, the results I was analyzing were from the time the poll had 181 votes.
This is interesting. I’ve been looking at my own communication habits as a consultant and mobile-centric person and while I find that I use email a lot, it is by no means the preferred method of communication.
I’d much rather use SMS and IM, and then email for longer discussions where I’d like some collaborative-like feedback on several items. At the same time, IM really could do this, saving the message for when the viewer could read it, and so I don’t know that its such a difference.
The social networks piece I debate on. There’s a benefit there from a branding standpoint, but for comms, not to much. I’m more more likely to use a social network to point me to some ream of information, and then use a comment on a blog, SMS, IM, or email to reach out to someone.
I really long for the day when networks make the distinction towards these silos though. For most people, the idea of having to figure out what comm tech is best to use is a lot worse than having the options towards different types.
Antoine,
Thanks for your feedback.
The real question I think is what would you be willing to stop using and switch to another provider? Most won’t switch their email service but would be willing to switch their social network or IM service.