Nick Usborne is a great writer, and offers great advice about email and web writing. His recent Excess Voice ezine talks about the lack of imagination in commercial email, and is worth the read…

Where is Email 2.0? And why is commercial email so boring?

"Web 2.0 is in full swing. The dollars are flowing, and more and more social network sites are being launched every week.

"Word of mouth marketing is hot. The customer-empowered marketplace is finally coming of age.

"On the web, people can feel more connected with each other, with communities of people who share their interests and passions. They can personalize their online experiences more than ever before. They can express themselves through blogs, photo sites, MySpace pages and lenses at Squidoo.

"But in my email inbox, I’m still reading emails that are as passive, as bland and as unimaginative as they were two years ago, five years ago, ten years ago…"

He concludes, "Just imagine…if there were social networks devoted to email and e-newsletters, companies would find themselves under pressure to deliver interesting content.

They only get away with sending boring emails right now, because each email is received in isolation, rather than being shared as part of a passionate community."

Good points. Anybody got any idea how email can be taken to the next level, to Email 2.0, as Nick suggests?