For as long as I can remember, I’ve had at least 2 email addresses. When I first came online in what was perhaps late 1996 or early 1997 using India’s first ISP, VNSL, Internet access was over a Shell account. This provided a text based interface (who even remembers this?) that provided access email using Pine, Gopher, NewsGroups, and few other services. Text based access to certain websites was available as well (Cricinfo and Yahoo! Were some of the first websites I visited.) Our whole family was given one, horribly long, email address that was something@giasbg01.vsnl.net.in. Only about a year later, when internet access over TCP/IP became an option and I was able to download a web-browser did I get my first hotmail account (which I still have!).

Through the years I’ve used email services from Lycos, USA.net, Yahoo!, Hotmail, Indiatimes, Gmail, Facebook and various private institutions that I studied or worked at. And I’ve always been very careful about separating personal conversations from Social Networking, marketing, newsletters, retailers, and other general junk that you need to provide an email address for. Gmail’s amazing spam filters and insane storage limits made trying to do this a little less relevant, but I persevered. At this point in time, I have a “personal” email address that I use to communicate with friends and family, a “junk” email address that I use to sign up at websites and on marketing material, a “social networking” email address that I provide on Facebook, Twitter, etc. and a “professional” email address for when I was corresponding with companies while looking for work. A bit much? Maybe, but Gmail also made it possible to actually manage all these accounts through a single Google account which is what I did.

The reason I do this is to separate my communications and identities based on the audience. However, in the last 12 months this has become harder and harder, and has reached a tipping point with the introduction of Google+. As an FYI, it is my “personal” email account that I use for Google+. My communications are in so many places now, including Facebook, Goolgle+, Twitter, and email, I wonder if it makes sense to separate and compartmentalise anymore? I’m still committed to keeping a separate “junk” email address, but does anyone have thoughts on keeping a separate email address for use on the social networks?