New App to Trigger Armageddon for Email?


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New App to Trigger Armageddon for Email?

Email Rendered Useless with New App?

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By Robert Williams, Founder

 

 

Many college syllabuses now include a message for students that you might think is stupidly obvious.

The message reads . . .

“You must check email DAILY every weekday.”

It’s a necessary evil, say professors. That is, since an entire generation views email as outdated and useless.

Well, Silicon Valley is already trumpeting (and financing) the death of email.

In fact, another $43 million just poured into a certain company’s coffers – a company that venture firms say will fire the fatal shot.

So is this a clever ruse? Or is email truly on the brink of extinction?

The trillion-dollar question to ask when gauging the fate of email is this . . .

“Has email reached the tipping point where it’s more of a nuisance than something useful?”

New data says that corporate managers spend up to 20 hours per week answering emails instead of doing mission-critical stuff like, say . . .   making money! Likewise, the average worker receives upwards of 200 emails per day, of which 20% is regarded as either useless or spam.

So from that point of view, at the very least, email is ready for an overhaul, right?

I’m sure you’ve heard of Peak Oil. Well, let’s call this present condition “Peak Email.”

Don’t Spam Me, Bro . . .

San Francisco startup company, Slack, is beginning to garner some attention.

In the six months since launching its new email-killing platform, companies as large as eBay (EBAY), Sony (SNE), Yelp (YELP), NBCUniversal, Airbnb, Buzzfeed, Comcast (CMCSA), and Wal-Mart (WMT) have already signed up.

The company claims to have saved the world from 70 million emails.

How does the new platform work?

It strategically integrates the most popular user-friendly features of social media – from the likes of Twitter (TWTR), Facebook (FB), Google+, and Dropbox – to stream messages to your desktop.

Chats play a key role in the new application, as well. Instead of emailing back and forth, employees just open a window to chat and swap files with whomever they want.

“The idea is to keep more people in the loop about what’s going on, moving past the call-response formality of email to something more flexible and engaging,” according to Businessweek.

What’s most impressive about Slack, though, is the money backing it.

The company has raised $42.75 million in Series C funding at a pre-money valuation around $220 million.

On the institutional side, Social+Capital Partnership has led the financing effort, with its general partner, Mamoon Hamid, having accepted a seat on the board.

Slack has attracted some heralded individual angel investors, too – like Twitter Co-Founder Biz Stone, Yelp Founder Jeremy Stoppelman, along with Stripe Inc. Co-Founders John and Patrick Collison (brothers).

Hit the “Delete” Button on Slack . . .

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that technology giants are on a historic buying frenzy, which explains why Slack is being so eagerly funded.

In the case of a sale to, say  . . .   Google (GOOGL) or Facebook, the potential return on investment is beyond comprehension. Valuations these days aren’t based on any rational models.

You’ll recall that virtual headset maker, Oculus, sought to raise $250,000 in crowdfunding money. Two years later, it was acquired by Facebook for $2 billion.

Bottom line, don’t buy Silicon Valley’s hype that email is dead.

Slack is nothing more than a means for shrewd venture firms to line their pockets.

Onward and Upward,

Robert Williams

Founder, Wall Street Daily

The post New App to Trigger Armageddon for Email? appeared first on Wall Street Daily.
By Robert Williams