Is E-Mailing Becoming Obsolete?

This topic was part of a newsletter I received this week that examined the longevity of e-mail. I figured I’d take their question and share my thoughts on it.

The subject of e-mail as we know it seems outdated, especially in the era of emerging social media and text messages, etc. Don’t get me wrong, I still use e-mail on a daily basis to communicate with dozens of people, but it’s not as personable as it used to be. The e-mails I used to receive from family and friends have been replaced by short Facebook messages or tweets. I’m sure most of you have experienced the same thing. For me, e-mail is only used to receive business-related material, but as for communicating with colleagues and friends, social networking has definitely overruled it.

A few years ago there was a big take down of the world’s biggest e-mail spammer, which resulted in millions of daily junk messages coming to an end. I’ve certainly noticed a cleaner inbox since this happened, which is probably the only positive thing to happen to e-mail in recent memory. Other than that, it’s just as bland as ever.

Companies are also taking notice about the slow demise of e-mail by switching their point of contact to customers from e-mail to Twitter. One local company in my hometown used to send out e-mails when they were having a sale. Now they have a sign in their front window asking customers to follow them on Twitter or to join their Facebook page. I asked the owner of the store why he stopped the e-mail service and he said it was too much to manage. He was using Aweber, which is fairly easy to manage, but I can understand where he’s coming from.

What do you think? Just like fax machines, is e-mail the next thing to die?

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