Will Social Network Sites Kill Email?
March 20, 2009 by Colleen Coplick
Filed under Social Media
In a BBC article coming out of SxSW, David Sacks, the founder of business social network Yammer, is quoted as saying that social network users are in “the process of creating email 2.0″. Granted, for the most part, people are posting status updates on their social media sites, but I disagree with the comment that Sacks thinks “it’s all people want to do.” Especially when I get up in the morning and take a look at the mounting pile of email sitting in my inbox. [source]
Email: sxc.hu
While the growth in such services is heralded as the start of the “real-time, pervasive web”, I see it as more of communications 2.0 rather than just email 2.0.
Social media and social networks are changing the way we communicate across the board, but they’re not replacing the way we send information, the way we connect, at least not 100%.
Sacks’ platform, Yammer, is an enterprise social network, designed to work as an internal communications tool, but it’s unlikely to replace email, phone calls, or the department newsletters and bulletin boards. Micro-updates, no matter what platform they’re on, be it Facebook’s “Colleen is…”, LinkedIn’s “What are you working on now?”, Twitter’s “What are you doing?”, Plinky’s inspiration questions or Yammer’s “What are you working on?”, will never replace the required meetings, full emails, or really, anything longer than 140 or 160 characters. Nothing longer than a quick request or a fast kudos on something.
In addition to all of those problems, there are frequently confidential messages that need to be kept within a select group, or even simply things that the entire company doesn’t need to be privvy to, for whatever reason.
While services like FriendFeed and Flickr allow users to share photos, video, or even comment in real time, the lifestreaming services have their place, but even when added to micro-sharing services, will still not replace email.
One of the major hurdles to doing away with email all together, is that all of the features of the lifestreaming and micro-sharing services don’t fit together in the way that users need them too. Whereas users can be on any platform for email, there is no one common micro-sharing, lifestreaming system that ties it all together in a pretty bow. For example, Twitter can be push a status update to Facebook, but not vice versa. There is no one system that can do it all, and send any information longer than a set number of characters. When was the last time you wrote an email with any kind of character limit?
It’s entirely possible that there may be a company out there working on a way to integrate all of this together, and if there’s not, then I really need to go and talk to my tech team. It’s been rumoured that Microsoft is working on a set of standard protocols which will allow people to share all of this information, regardless of what service or platform they’re using.
No matter what the “next big thing” is, I don’t think email is going to go away anytime soon.
Will it kill email?
No.
That was simple. Then again, I still build webpages from notepad. :)
I am sure that everything will be integrated into one, and I agree that email will remain here for a while. I believe that as new sectors are created, email will become less popular, but that is true for everything. There will always be a bigger and better version of something created. Email has practical uses. Social networks also have practical uses. Just because social networks are “heralded as the start of the ‘real-time, pervasive web’” does not mean that it will overtake other forms of electronic communication.
Keep in mind that with new technology comes new forms of communication and make connecting easier however, a virtual gift will never be the same as recieving a tangible package via the mail just like an email is different than a message on your social networking page. -Annalise http://www.ezanga.com
The buzz of social networks surpassing email usage is all over the net. We have to keep in mind that our telecommunication model is constantly reinventing and transforming itself. Right now, Twitter is the next best thing for fast, informative information made tangible at searchers’ fingertips. The question I’ve been wondering, however, is what’s next? Just like email, will social networkers eventually get tired of the same mundane networking functions?
I believe the next best thing could possibly be integrating a prize initiative for members, just like eZanga.com’s recently launched social network, http://www.HopOnThis.com. Members earn points by staying socially active on the site. A rewarding twist added to an already popular hobby.
Why social networks won’t kill email anytime soon: http://bit.ly/2oC7IV
Interesting question, Colleen. I vote no. Here’s why: I would hardly ever visit Facebook if not for email alerts. And as I join more and more niche social networks, I have to depend on email to keep me active and to ensure that I don’t miss anything important. Same with LinkedIn. I think email plays an important role in getting the message out, FOR the social networks. At least for those of us with day jobs and not enough time to spend hanging out at these sites for hours on end. I know that what is true for me today may not be in 6 months, or even three…but for now email is still very important.
another technology that will give email a run for its money is online collaboration. presently, a lot of things we use email for doing – file collaboration, managing and tracking tasks, having discussions – will move to online collaboration tools as they’re low cost and easy to use.
we recently did a white paper on the subject – http://hyperoffice.com/business-email-overload/