Welcome! We're delighted you've come to visit The Museum of Email & Digital Communications. We hope you'll revisit many times, and we invite you to help build the museum.
Why The Museum?
Computer-based communications technologies have revolutionized human experience. For example:
- In our personal lives, we use them to arrange dates, and we reach out to distant loved ones as if they were next door
- In business, tiers of management have been removed, and business cycles compressed from weeks to hours
- In politics, oppressive dictatorships have toppled
In short, the impact has been remarkable, and breathtaking. Email initiated the revolution.
The first emails were sent in the 1960s, and they're now ubiquitous. Along the way, other computer-based technologies have evolved to help people communicate, such as instant messaging, discussion groups, voice-over-IP, web conferencing, shared workspaces, wikis, and, most recently, social media. The roller-coaster innovations continue, exciting and unpredictable.
Most of the early innovators are still alive, and the electronic record of the technologies' evolution is rich. We thus have a wonderful opportunity to record the development of digital communications for posterity.
Even more exciting, the opportunity is unique and unparallelled. We can record the revolution in a way that wasn't possible with earlier innovations in human communications that shook the world, such as the book, the postal system, and the telephone.
Hence The Museum of Email & Digital Communications.
Current Status
The museum currently consists of some 2,500 reports, conferences, and bulletins, dating back to 1990. It is virtual, and everything can be browsed at the museum's website, www.email-museum.com.
The museum is a not-for-profit resource that is open, in much the same way that Wikipedia is. Anyone can get involved, provided they have relevant expertise. The content is growing, and we invite visitors to contribute.
The museum was founded in mid-2011. Since then:
- The website was established and the initial archive populated
- The nucleus of the curator team was formed
- A sponsorship program was defined
- Initial contributors and sponsors joined us
- The March, 2012 launch was planned
- Registration as a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) educational charity was initiated
Learn More About:
- The museum's curators
- Our future plans
- Our finances
- Ferris Research: provider of the museum's initial archive
Join the Community
Currently we're looking for:
- Curators -- As a curator, you need to be a recognized expert in some aspect of human digital communications. Meet our current curators here. If you'd like to become a curator, or can recommend someone, read more here.
- Contributing Editors -- If you are knowledgeable about some aspects of the fields we cover, and can contribute at least one piece per month, we'd like to hear from you. See more information here.
- Contributors -- If you'd like to contribute occasional content, read more here.
- Sponsors -- The museum needs sponsors to participate in launch activities and help fund ongoing operations. This is a great opportunity to get solid exposure by serving the public interest. See more information here.
You may also browse the museum and respond to content by registering here.
If you have ideas that might benefit the museum, please email executive curator David Ferris or call him at +1 415 367 3436.
With Special Thanks To . . .
The museum would like to acknowledge the following for having been instrumental in the formation of the initial content of the museum:
- Many of the world's largest IT organizations
- Many innovative, pioneering vendors, most of which are part of the history
- Ferris Research analysts and support staff
We would also like to thank Deliberate Web Development for its excellent work with our Website. We recommend this firm highly!