One thing which has not survived well is any attempt to replace email with a more complex messaging tool like Google Wave. With the rise of more targeted communication tools like Slack, Facebook, and Snapchat though, you never know.
As we never know, I am adding one more tool to the targeted communication tools listed by @zackbloom.
Formal Messenger ( https://www.formalapp.com ) is a email alternative app which has options to handle email's categorization, overload and etiquette problems.
Disclosure: This is a shameless plug. I am a developer at Formal.
But you can request the sender's to contact you through Formal messenger by setting a permanent vacation responder in your email. Only humans read the automatic responder so your notification emails won't be affected.
For your machine communications like notification you can use email.
But for human communications you may consider Formal messenger because it organizes the incoming messages for you with help from sender's themselves.
Achieving human level performance on any real world task is an exceedingly difficult endeavour when moving away from a few simple and well defined tasks.
May be related or off topic
I have developed a small messaging application which categorise the incoming messages by HUMANs (instead of AI) to achieve less false positives.
HTTPS://www.formalapp.com
I admit this app's solution is not technically complex.
And I understand building AI based solution is complex and needs more expertise.
But in this use case relying on human intelligence works
or am I missing something ?
Email is different kind of thing to different people.
Solving all email problems with extentions is complicated.(Standards).
There are tools that take one problem or weakness from email and address that specifically.
Like Slack is for Internal communication with in organization.
Formal address the one use case of email, external whenever(not real time) communication.
You cannot replace your entire email with formal as a whole.
Just like Slack is Slack and not an email extension for internal communication.
Formal tries to solve problems in one specific use case of email. External communication.
For example,
You have already adapted slack and now your major use case of email is external communication then you may take that responsibility from your email and adapt Formal.
If you think Formal adds value to your life then
1. Register for Formal. (30 Seconds)
2. Set a permanent Vacation Responder in your email to contact you through Formal. (30 Seconds) (Only humans read this responder and act)
3. Share your Formal Id with anyone instead of your email id.
As we never know, I am adding one more tool to the targeted communication tools listed by @zackbloom.
Formal Messenger ( https://www.formalapp.com ) is a email alternative app which has options to handle email's categorization, overload and etiquette problems.
Disclosure: This is a shameless plug. I am a developer at Formal.