Time Waster Or Tool? Is Email Still The King?

Back in the early days of the public internet, the mid-1990s, email was the killer application.

A dozen years later email still rules our online lives, sucks up time, causes headaches—all for messages seemingly we cannot live without.

Who among our faithful and opinionated Mac360 readers does not have email? Or, email hassles in the form of spam, worthless announcements and CC’s messages.

After all the email and spam filters, I still get about 100 messages a day. That’s too many. And I use the best email application on the planet.

Bambi and I are both diehard Microsoft Office users, and live by Entourage. The rest of the Mac360 crew is not so fortunate, spreading their email addiction to various and sundry email clients.

Most Mac email users are Mail users, and rightly so. Mail has matured, is relatively stable, has plenty of add-on utilities, and comes at the right price. Free.

From our perspective, whatever Mail does well, Entourage does better. Remarkably, those are not the only two names in the Mac’s arsenal of email solutions.

There’s also Mozilla’s Thunderbird, but I’m not a fan of a Windows-like interface. At least the Mac Business Unit at Microsoft are Mac users and designed Entourage to work like a Mac application.

A quick look at MacUpdate’s search for “email” results in a hefty page of email applications, add-ons, utilities, archive options, and more for the email addicted.

The internet’s original killer application has matured physically, but hasn’t grown up.

Email has become a killer, indeed—a killer of my time and patience.

Too much of what comes to me as email is worthless, yet there are times, especially while on the road, that email is indispensible. The Jekyl and Hyde of Mac tools.

My favorite add-on is Spam Sieve, the spam fillter utility. It works better and more consistently than Apple’s built-in junk mail or the default feature in Entourage, and runs at nearly 98-percent accuracy for trapping my incoming spam.

Still, email for all the value and addiction, carries many of the side effects of a drug addiction. For awhile, I thought that Instant Messaging might be a relief from the tedium of responding to messages.

Over time I’ve developed a nagging fear that business does not work efficiently as it could because of email and instant messaging.

Bambi and I both work on the road, though in opposite parts of the country. Getting in to a hotel and catching up on email rather than sleep is not what the aura of travel should be.

Is there a way out of the email mess? Is there a way to fully defeat spam? Is there an ultimate email application (don’t argue with me—Entourage is better)? Is email as important as we let it be?

I’m ready for a dialog. I’m ready for a pathway to salvation in the form of a 12 Step routine for intervention to control my email addiction.

What’s your email routine? Mine is ongoing, 18-hours a day, non-stop except for travel and sleep. And it’s wearing on me.

If you were my technology tool doctor, what prescription would you write? The Mac360 Forums are open and ready for your wisdom.