I read an article by Jessica E. Vascellaro, a staff reporter at The Wall Street Journal's San Francisco bureau. The following quote caught my attention, ¹ "Email has had a good run as king of communications. But its reign is over." It caught my attention because I’m interested in media trends as I’m sure many of our blog readers are as well.

The article was dated October 2009. It is now April 2010 and people are still checking their emails so I thought that I’d revisit this topic and write a short blog about the debate. I’m sure the question email marketers and services selling email marketing keep asking themselves might be: "Is social media going to kill email and if so, when?" The ²'2010 Email Marketing Benchmark Report' will not only tell you why social media will not kill email, it will also show you how the two mediums work in tandem to increase engagement with prospects and customers.

¹ Jessica wrote, "Now, we are always connected, whether we are sitting at a desk or on a mobile phone. The always-on connection, in turn, has created a host of new ways to communicate that are much faster than email, and more fun." While there is no denying that e-mail has moved from the once primary means of person-to-person Internet communication to only one of several devices we might use to get our messages to each other, it still serves as the unequivocal backbone of online communication.

I believe its trope to think that social media will replace email anytime soon. In fact, e-mail might take a few evolutionary steps of its own as technology advances. We can only speculate how social media communication channels and traditional e-mail might morph, change, and potential fuse in the near future.

So, while Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other various social media continue to change the landscape of what we use as communication tools, social media hasn't killed e-mail yet. E-mail marketers are more likely to find new and revolutionary means of exploiting the new tools before they roll over dead.

¹ As cited online at www.wsj.com. Title: "The End of the Email Era" by Jessica Vascellaro, The Wall Street Journal's San Francisco bureau.

² As cited online at www.sherpastore.com/EmailMKTReport2010.html All-New Email Research: The Convergence of Email and Social Media.

Carpe Diem My Friends!