Social networks versus email: when the prey becomes the predator
Latest posts | Feed | By Mark Brownlow on October 18, 2007
The potential impact of social networks (like Facebook and MySpace) on email has filled many blog and column inches. Once the tiresome "social networks killed email" argument was dispensed with, wise folk accepted that these networks would at least change the way people use email. And the challenge to email marketers became this...how do you adapt to these changes?
Of course, the first problem is working out exactly what the likely changes in email user habits are actually going to be.
And it's no longer just about changes in user habits, but also changes in the very functionality of email. This basic functionality (email tools, software and interfaces) hasn't changed that much over the years.
Until now.
For instead of killing email, social networks are set to breathe new life into the medium. With inevitable impacts for email marketing.
The reason is simple. Email, for all its limitations, is ubiquitous and inclusive. There are hundreds of millions of email users, each able to communicate directly with each other.
Social networks, for all their benefits, each have a limited and exclusive user base. This situation leads to three trends.
First, social networks beef up their email functionality, as seen with Facebook's recent move to allow users to send email messages to non-Facebook users. (See the Facebook announcement.)
Second, the big email address providers realize they can keep and exploit their "captive" email audience by adding in social network components to their email interfaces. (See today's Wall Street Journal article: Will social features make email sexy again?)
The portal / webmail powerhouses like Yahoo!, Google and MSN have a good chance of beating upstarts like Facebook at their own game, by using social network features to enhance, rather than replace, email. (See also Steve Rubel's recent post.)
Third, everyone else realizes that people need to integrate and simplify their online communication before they spend all day logging in and out of different accounts and chasing up messages old and new.
Which is why we're hearing about new tools and services designed to turn your traditional email interface into an all-encompassing communication and coordination hub. (See VentureBeat's Four startups ready to change the face of email.)
Ironically, then, it seems email may end up swallowing social networks. Quite what this all means to email marketing I'll leave to the thought leaders out there. But change is afoot. Big change. And we would be wise to keep tabs on it.
Tags: email marketing, social media, social networks, webmail, future of email
[This post brought to you by Campaigner Email Marketing]
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