The medium is no longer the message by Omar Al Akkad, Globe and Mail (Mar 10)
E-mail is sagging, and social networking surging.
Nielsen reports for December 2008 show percentages of global use:
+ Search - 86%
+ General interest portals and communities 85.2
+ Software manufacturers 73.4
+ Member communities (ie social networks) 66.8 - and had the greatest growth in the last year, up 5.4%
+ Email 65.1
""Increasingly, e-mail is yesterday's messaging platform," said Carmi Levy, technology analyst at AR Communications Inc., adding that the medium has become flooded with spam, forcing users to spend lots of time clearing out junk messages and making sure that spam filters haven't mistakenly directed legitimate messages to the garbage bin. "[With social networks], you don't just connect in static manner, you connect in a dynamic manner - you're taking part in a community."
E-mail appears increasingly passé as social-networking sites overtake it for fourth place in overall online activity