The threat of social media?

Many wise heads have suggested the social media revolution spells the end for email.
I beg to differ.

First it was Friends Reunited, then MySpace, Bebo, Facebook, and most lately, Twitter. New, exciting ways to communicate. Only Facebook and Twitter still cut any ice, and I believe Twitter to be no more than a fad. Watch it die death as mainstream media as celebs desert it en masse.
Facebook may survive, but already its pages are littered with the remains of casual, lapsed users. Try searching for a name, and see how many dormant entries there are.

These are not media - they are applications, whereas email is a unique medium. Applications will come and go. Some will morph into survival, some will die through user inertia, or stark lack of revenue.

But email has already taken it's place amongst the bedrock media on which our lives are based, and will endure. As a communications tool, as a marketing device. Email works, and does not depend upon being commercialised to survive.

Clever marketers will integrate social media into their campaigns, but email will need to be, must be a fundamental component of these for the campaigns to succeed.

Email is, after the telephone, our best chance to talk directly, personally and individually to people. It is already many people preferred method of communication. It allows response, rather than reaction.

It has so many benefits, and it will be here long after Facebook, Twitter et al have been consigned to the publishing graveyard in the nether regions of the world wide web.