Getting down to basics.
E-mail is, for me, the ultimate application. There's something basic, perhaps
generic, about it. And of course it's become ubiquitous. But having someone's
e-mail address doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to use it. I can think
of at least seven instances over the past seven years in which I "reestablished"
contact with old friends (or they with me) via e-mail. Sometimes, of course, the
excitement isn't mutual. One side may say "how nice, I've found him!",
while the other says "oh dear, he found me!". In situations such as
this someone's name gets added to our address list, but that's about the extent
of the contact. At other times both sides are truly excited about once again having
contact, but are probably simply too busy with today's activities to deal with
yesterday's as well. Ultimately we discover that the flurry of excitement was
only a flurry, and the contact was only fleeting.
Go to: Logical, but not the only, or
Go to: Strangers on a network.