Sure, these days everyone and their grandma — literally, their grandma — is creating a Facebook page to keep up with their peeps.
Indeed, a year ago, member community sites accounted for one in every 15 minutes spent online, according to Nielsen. Now they account for one in every 11.
Does this mean e-mail is going the way of the CB radio? No. Sure, a recent study by the University of Southern California’s Center for the Digital Future reported that Internet users maintain weekly personal e-mail contact with an average of seven people, down from a peak of nine in 2006.
Still, there is one undeniable fact that indicates the death of e-mail has been greatly exaggerated. The vast majority of Internet users still use e-mail — 97%, according to USC’s Center for the Digital Future.
Moreover, social networks and e-mail aren’t rivals; they enable one another. How do the social networks communicate with their members? E-mail. Every time someone links to a member, joins a member’s network, sends a member a message, and more, the network sends him or her an e-mail.
“We’ve been working with social networks to help them operate more efficiently in the e-mail space,” says Stephanie Miller, vice president of global market development for Return Path. “E-mail is how they drive traffic back to their sites. If you sign up for Facebook, they send you an e-mail for everything that happens. That stream of messages is what drives their ad views.”
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