Editor & Publisher, March 1, 1997 v130 n9 p26(2)
Growing impact of e-mail. (on newspapers) Hoag Levins.
Abstract: The emergence of e-mail as one of the premier means of commercial
communications
may undermine the preeminence of newspapers as the medium of choice for
businesses. A report by
Forrester Research shows that the rapid spread of e-mail use across the
population as well as the
evolution of increasingly sophisticated e-mail management and support software
is bound to impact
the ways in which Americans interact with news organizations and advertisers.
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 1997 Editor & Publisher Company ALTHOUGH GENERALLY
PERCEIVED as the duller sister of the Internet's popular World Wide Web,
e-mail is rapidly
developing into such a powerful commercial communications medium in its
own right that it may
soon challenge newspapers in ways they don't expect, according to a new
study by Forrester
Research.
In a report entitled "E-Mail Explodes," Forrester predicts that three trends
-- the exponential growth
of e-mail use throughout the general population, the emergence of e-mail
technology supporting the
exchange of fully interactive HTML documents, and the rapid evolution of
new sorts of "intelligent"
personal e-mail management software -- are converging to change the way
vast numbers of
Americans will interact with local news organizations and advertisers.
Conducted as part of Forrester's ongoing "People and Technology" research
project, the study
included interviews with the executives of 50 corporations -- ranging from
AT&T and America
Online to Merrill Lynch and Western Union -- that operate, facilitate or
analyze large-scale e-mail
activities across the United States.
Forrester is a Cambridge, Mass., research organization that conducts ongoing
market analysis for
newspaper corporations such as Gannett and PAFET, a consortium of six media
companies
including Pulitzer Publishing Co., Cowles Media Co., and McClatchy Newspapers,
as well as
CBS, NBC and a variety of Fortune 500 companies involved in the sale of
consumer goods.
Forrester senior analyst, Kate Delhagen, warned that there is "an awareness
gap" between
newspaper executives and e-mail.
"We don't believe the full power and potential of these new e-mail developments
are well
understood by most newspaper publishers," she said.
The study reports that 40 million Americans -- or about 15% of the population
-- are currently using
e-mail and that this number is rising at a rate that will reach 135 million
-- or 50% of the population
-- within five years.
Delhagen points out that this pattern would not be evenly distributed,
but rather concentrated in
percentages up to 60% or 70% of households in affluent communities where
computer ownership
and use is highest.
"Currently, not enough people in the newspaper business are thinking a
few years out to what it
means to have such high levels of e-mail accessibility," Delhagen said.
As harbingers of what's to come, Forrester points out that the Internet's
four-year-old Mercury Mail
Service now sends three million customized news-containing e-mail messages
to 300,000 customers
each week and that 1 million people signed up in a recent six week period
for a new Netscape
service that e-mails them fully interactive HTML pages containing news
and features from the New
York Times and other Web-based newspapers and magazines.
In fact, the report projects that e-mail will become such an essential
element of daily American life
within 15 years that the federal government is likely to ultimately require
Internet Service Providers
(ISPs) to offer universal e-mail service to all households, much the same
as AT&T was forced to
provide nonprofitable phone service to rural communities earlier this century.
Forrester indicates that current software development, corporate marketing
programs and user trends
will soon cause significant numbers of Americans to routinely pay their
bills, order their drug
prescriptions and otherwise interact with local vendors via e-mail. They
project that by 2001, the
typical e-mail-using consumer will participate in eight to 10 commercial
e-mail activities per week,
using electronic messaging the way they previously used the telephone or
postal service to
communicate with local and regional businesses and agencies.
The most far-reaching change occurring, according to the report, involves
the increasing
sophistication of the individual user's software itself. Currently, the
receiving end of most e-mail
programs operates much like a single, large bucket into which is dumped
a haphazard stream of
arriving messages.
These pile up quickly and force the user to click through dozens or even
hundreds of unwanted,
irrelevant or useless electronic mail to find those messages that really
matter.
Forrester indicates that these crude programs will soon be replaced by
new kinds of e-mail software
that work like "an intelligent, automated storage bin" or a "personal content
store."
The "personal content store" will be able to filter out unwanted junk mail
and handle incoming mail
in an organized manner that eliminates today's congestion.
For instance, such a system can "read" an incoming e-mail file from a news
service and route it to a
"news" folder on your hard disk at the same time it might route a message
from your office associate
to another folder, or a discount e-mail coupon from a local restaurant
to yet another folder.
Thus, the user can manage large amounts of incoming e-mail and enjoy quick
and orderly access to
specific kinds of messages.
"This `content store' actually functions as a kind of a daily multimedia
publication," explained
Delhagen.
"Every day there will be substantial quantities of e-mail messages coming
in from many sources --
news items, advertising, discount offers, personal messages.
"As they arrive, they will be automatically organized so that the user
can browse through them much
like people now browse the sections or pages of a newspaper looking for
things that interest them."
The report concluded by projecting, "People will check personal content
stores first thing in the
morning, when they arrive home in the evening, and before they go to sleep.
Newspapers will need
to deliver early-bird e-mail editions for online customers."
Forrester also predicts that new e-mail software filters and organizers
will force bulk e-mail
companies to become more like newspapers or shoppers' guides in order to
survive.
The companies that now indiscriminately "spam" out millions of hard-sell
e-mail messages a day
will have to package their advertising with interesting, useful or entertaining
content to get past
users' personal e-mail barriers in the future.
"We think the bulk e-mailers that survive will move toward e-mail deliveries
with personalized
coupons, contests and other value-added items that consumers decide they
want to receive,"
Delhagen said.
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