Ideas for increasing the popularity of PBM

[Grainpaw]

Let's not get hung up on semantics. When I started playing in 1977, it was called PBM because that was how people communicated then. Mailed dot-matrix printouts and magazines, lots of postcards (I had my own printed once), and occasionally phone calls (I toyed with the idea of starting a lower-cost long distance service for gamers. as it seemed the phone companies were making more than the PBM companies per turn). There was no reason some simpler games, like Diplomacy couldn't have been played in the 19th Century, had they been around then. From about 2000 on, I played by email, unless I wanted to pay extra for paper and be put in a slower game. By all means let's use appropriate tech. We have to look forward, be creative, and evolve. The Postal Service is falling behind the times when they can't even maintain stamp vending machines in P.O. lobbies. The term turn-based gaming is new to me, so it didn't come readily to mind when I was writing a quick note.
There are many potential TBG gamers out there, but they are involved in what they are already doing, and TBG is so obscure that it is off their radar entirely.
Unrelated tidbit: Here's the dialogue from the 11-19-13 Pearls Before Swine comic strip, illustrating that we need more options than just "shoot 'em up."
Rat: Want to play 'Halo' with me? The guys in red are our enemy.
Zebra: Okay.
Rat: Dude, what are you doing? Why aren't you shooting at the enemy?
Zebra: I'm looking for a button that lets us talk it out.
Rat: Perhaps you don't understand gaming.
Zebra: Is there a way to send flowers?