Post in Online Communities of Practice

Apr 22 19:07 UTC

It's interesting to be having this discussion, we really haven't moved on much
at all in ten years in some ways! And that's good because email really does
work in a lot of situations (as Shane alludes, not in all!)... it's not a new
theory though and it's well enough researched.

It's the push versus pull argument. Email (and rss feeds) work because they are
passive; web-forums fail in these kind of settings because they are active (you
have to go and get them and so motivation needs to be much higher and that's
hard to sustain).

Dan's software (what we're using here) works because it allows for all of the
combinations of push and pull so the user gets to select the experience that
suits them and their way of operating. And it's made in New Zealand too ;-)

Simple as usual is best!