Discussion Question: 3-16-11

Suppose you have an important message to send to a friend in another city, and you can use the telephone, email, real-time teleconference, fax, or overnight mail service. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each. See if you can think of a situation for each of the five options in which that particular option is the most appropriate choice.

All 5 of these systems used to send messages have their advantages and disadvantages. A telephone would be used when you need to tell somebody a list of things that would take too much time typing from an email. An email would be used when you want to quickly tell somebody something. A time teleconference would be used when the things you want to tell are very important, so you would want to see them. Fax is, like email, used for quick messaging and overnight mail service is used to send physical items. Disadvantages are mainly consisted of time issues, and portability.