As of this moment, the most e-mailed article on washingtonpost.com is an article about people who have declared "e-mail bankruptcy" and either stopped using e-mail entirely or made serious efforts to cut down. I'm not sure if I should be laughing.

My e-mail isn't quite as overwhelming as some people interviewed for the story, perhaps because I've been at NAA less than a year. But I can, at least somewhat, understand where these people are coming from -- with my work e-mail account and two gmail accounts, one of them is bound to have something new with some frequency.

And, getting actual phone calls and hearing someone's voice has become much more fun. It won't ever reach the fun of getting a birthday card snail-mailed, but it's ranking up there for sure.

My Bloglines account, on the other hand, which I've set up to help compile the Online Publishing Update, is bordering on completely out of control. I had 484 new items this morning, thanks mostly to some especially productive bloggers and The New York Times' business section.

All this makes me wonder if breaking e-mail alerts and customized e-mail content from newspaper companies are just getting lost in the mix for some people. If anyone has analyzed the open rates on their e-mail alerts and feels like sharing, call me. My work number is (571) 366-1037.