He is right. And because of that un-accountability, the growing volume of UBE(unsolicited bulk email) also known as spam, is clogging the arteries of the Internet and threatening to cripple the very medium which supports it.

Ray says, " ... In Groove, for example, once you start experiencing the swarming aspects of work within its workspaces, you're hooked. ... And it stops bothering you that eMail is so incredibly broken."

Yet everyone seems to be trying to "fix" email. Why? Email is like that "Norwegian Blue" parrot in the old Monty Python routine. It is not pining for the fjords, it has passed on, it has ceased to be, it is an ex-parrot. It is only hanging on because it has been nailed to its perch!

We agree with Ray, there are other ways to communicate and collaborate on the web. We have been fans of Notes since the mid-1990's (v3, actually). It was the first time we really saw the true power and greater potential of computing as a tool for collaboration and social interaction. Ray had gone even further with Groove, making virtual collaboration efficient and transparent. It should always be about the people and the work, NOT the conduit.

Quikonnex was given life in the spirit of that same philosophy. Yes, it is based on blog/RSS technology. But so many of the weblogs, with or without RSS feeds, which we saw were developed by tech folks, for tech folks, and they seemed almost to shun regular people. Shocking though this may be to the many technically astute on the web, you are in the minority. The regular folks have you outnumbered, and they need new forms of communication, because they are also suffering under the same burden of spam. They just don't want to become propeller-heads to get it.

Legitimate ezine and newsletter publishers are finding it increasingly difficult to distribute their publications, and subscribers are finding it increasingly difficult to receive information which they have requested. The idea behind Quikonnex was to provide an easy hassle-free way for both to connect and be free of the email debacle. That is why Q Publishing Members don't have to know anything about blogging, or RSS, or databases, or other back-end technology, they just publish. And their subscribers don't have to know anything about channel viewers or new aggregators, because we did the research to find some good ones, which are compatible with Q Channels, and have made it very easy for them to acquire and subscribe to their favorite publishers' channels. We also built in multiple forms of two-way communication, thus making email irrelevant.

Ray wrote, " ... eMail is thirty years old, and we owe it a great debt of honor, but it has been pushed well beyond its design center and it's time to move on. Incrementally, progressively, but most definitely."

We agree. Workspaces work and channels work. Stop trying to keep email on life support or mourning its demise without thought of alternatives. They are already here, just open your eyes and look around.

To read Ray's post in its entirety, please visit RayOzzie's Weblog - 1 OCT 2003 .

To learn more about online collaboration, please visit the Groove Networks, Inc. site.

If you would like to know more about Quikonnex, please click any of the links here which interest you, or if you would like to chat with a Qhead, please click the QSupport link at the far right of the bar at the top of this page.