Hitting the big three-0

It would be tempting, when doing some kind of cost/benefit analysis of 30 years of email, to steal the old Monty Python question, and then reel off a list of ways email has changed our lives.

But it's a cheap gag. We are all aware of the businesses that just wouldn't have happened without this most resilient of messaging media, and the couples that met and courted via the medium. Less easy to quantify are the savings - in monetary terms, in terms of saved paper - that email has enabled across the board, across all industries.

Let's just say it's one of the handful of advances we can say has changed the world in the last 50 years. (And yes, despite all the junk out there, it is an advance, even though the team that brings you the silicon.com daily email would say that, wouldn't we?)

Instead, let's think about what we would like email to be. We know it - and the internet it generally makes use of for any non-local communication - isn't perfect. So what improvements are needed? What would be the best present email could get for its thirtieth?

We've suggested in the past the ability for it to check intelligently for viruses at a server or client level. But maybe that's not much of an advance.

How about email that's both truly portable and at the same time able to intuitively help us respond? In a future of AI why not place those email implants in our cerebral cortex and communicate wirelessly, without typing, without even voice?

OK, OK, let's step back. For its thirtieth, why not just get email an e-femail or convince it to take up vegetarianism and so give up spam.

These ideas are terrible. So that's why we're asking you to let us know what you'd like email to be. Post that Reader Comment below or email (of course) editorial@silicon.com. No prizes this time, just a chance to play a part in the evolution by telling us what would make email better.