Double-slash regret and the fall of email

13/10/09 posted by Liz Niland

When Tim Berners-Lee, the man widely credited with bringing the internet to the Googling public, was questioned about his career, he said he holds just one regret.

Nothing to do with some of the internet’s more questionable content, nothing to do with spammers, phishing or Youtube sensations, Berners-Lee’s regret is comparatively quite quaint.

If he was to do it all again, he would do away with the double slash “//” that appears after “http:” in web addresses. 

Speaking at a symposium in Washington last week, the university professor and director of the World Wide Web Consortium expressed concern about the number of trees he could have saved by having the foresight to eliminate the double slash.

Given the internet has revolutionised the way we both communicate and do business, we here at Sharkey Media have decided we won’t hold the double slash against Berners-Lee. We wouldn’t mind talking to him about the ridiculous number of Lolcat websites on the internet though.

Getting a bad rap in the media of late, email has copped yet another blow. This time though, the problem isn’t hackers: it’s us. According to Nielsen, more people across the world are using social networking sites (301.5 million) than email (276.9 million).

Jessica E. Vascellaro, in her article for the Wall Street Journal argues that the power of services such as Twitter, Facebook and Google Wave are proving email to be the courier pigeon of today.      

Although email still has a whole lot of kick left in it, particularly for use in business, there is no question that it will have to adapt and evolve to keep a long-term foothold in our daily communications.

Then again, social networking is not for everyone. Reader Don Brazier commented on this article, “I'll stick with e-mail - write when I want, as often (or not) as I want, to whom I want - privately. No interest in letting the world know that I overcooked the spaghetti.”