I’m in the business of making e-mail a safe and more productive tool. Part of my job is to consider questions like “Why is FaceBook so great and why do so many people use it?” After careful consideration, I have come to the conclusion that FaceBook has succeeded in providing more than simply a nice social networking environment. Thanks to FaceBook’s “opt-in by request only” nature, people are able to connect and communicate one-to-one (and in some cases one-to-many) with only those people they have authorized. I know many people who have stopped using traditional free e-mail services like Gmail and Yahoo, and instead use FaceBook to communicate with friends and colleagues. I ask these people why they have abandoned e-mail and in all cases the answer has been the same. “FaceBook is easy to use, is safe from threats, and is spam free.”

I do not know anyone that works for FaceBook. However, if I did, I would certainly compliment them on creating the secure communications channel that e-mail could have been.

This brings me to the explanation of the title of this posting…

In my opinion, e-mail is the original “social networking” tool. To quote George Lucas, “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….” in a pre-FaceBook, pre-LinkedIn world; there was e-mail. Before the “bad guys” and “marketing guys” messed up e-mail, it was a great tool for managing your social network of friends and business associates. Unfortunately for e-mail, there is no built-in concept of “opt-in by request only” functionality. In fact, with e-mail, there is virtually no built-in security whatsoever.

As the original “killer app,” for e-mail to maintain its undisputed role as the most important communications medium since the telephone, it seems clear to me that e-mail needs to be “upgraded” at least to a security level equal to that of other major social networking tools.