It's time for faxes to become extinct

I went to a meeting yesterday and met an interesting guy who is an investment banker/venture capital funding specialist. After he was done he offered to send us the deck from which he presented. So like I do when I receive any card from someone I have met I entered in his contact information into my contacts. But I took pause when I set to enter in the fax number.

Will I ever fax anything to this person? Probably never. So then I thought about how infrequently I send or receive a fax. Yes we use them occasionally in our business for bills of lading or proof of deliveries on shipments we have made on behalf of clients. But even those could be scanned and emailed.

So many of us (me included) are trying to cut down on the office paper we use on a daily basis. Emails often include a line to ‘please consider if printing this email is necessary’ or something to that effect. A good and useful message to be sure. But what about faxes?

I have been around long enough to have been there at the outset of faxes - rolls of paper in a big bulky machine that went around and around, took forever to print out and to boot were printed on awful paper that would want to roll up on itself once half the roll had been used. But they were cool - twenty five plus years ago that is.

Today we get a couple of faxes every morning from local eateries notifying us of their daily specials. I would think that it would be to their (and our) benefit to create an email list and then email the specials each morning. Then they have a list and we do not have to waste paper or energy (or a phone line) for a fax machine. Maybe during the day we get or send a fax or two but that’s about it.
And what could be less private than a fax machine in the middle of an office where everyone has access? An inexpensive scanner could easily do the trick to replace the fax and a service like eFax (which is free for the basic version) would allow faxes sent to you to be received as emails.

So when I meet with my team next week I will discuss jettisoning the fax machine. I am sure that idea is will be met with some trepidation and discomfort since it will be difficult for some to imagine losing the perceived convenience of the fax machine. But one less phone line, less paper and removing the need to go look for a fax far outweighs the benefit. We can do this. So can you. What do you think?

What’s Howard Stern going to do when satellite radio crashes and burns?

Sirius paid Howard a SERIOUS amount of money to beat out XM for his ‘services’. Of course Sirius ended up outbidding itself once the government approved the union of these two floundering companies. I read the article in the 12/28 NY Times Sunday Business section (read the article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/28/business/media/28radio.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=Mel%20Karmazin%20&st=cse )

I do think a great deal of Mel Karmazin and he has given his best effort but it’s not working. Over the past few years we have had 2 new leased cars both of which came equipped with satellite radio for a 3 month trial. Both times we did not extend the service after the trial period was over. At $ 12.95 per month it was an easy decision. I am not a Howard Stern listener so that wasn’t a reason to pay up nor would I pay for the opportunity to listen to Chris ‘Mad Dog’ Russo formerly of WFAN now on satellite radio.

It was doomed from the start. A big market never really existed for a paid service ($ 150+/year!) where you could get some unique content but advertisements as well. Terrestrial radio is slowly dying as well of natural causes. But Sirius/XM is on life support and I believe the plug will soon be pulled.

The iPod is only one reason and eventually the iPod will take feeds in from the internet such that you could play those feeds through to your car. And how many people subscribe to satellite radio at home?

If satellite radio were $ 4/month that price would be intriguing enough for me (and perhaps other people) to give it a serious look. But the content is still lacking after several years of promises of cool and unique programming. It reminds me of my 100+ channels of cable TV where frequently I am unable to find anything to watch.

In my customer controlled communications world I would have content made available to me to be called up on voice command. Read me page one of the NY Times. Allow me to say ‘next article’ or sports, or ‘Jets news’ and then have that read over the air with no delay. This technology exists. Why satellite radio never made it there is a mystery to me. But it’s too late now. I would not invest in XM/Sirius stock right now ($ 0.12/share) and it seems most investors feel the same.

Too bad – it wasn’t a bad idea it was just poorly executed.