I feel like the pot of petunias in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy when it uttered its last thought: Oh no! Not again!

Email is dead! Email is dead!

Oh no...not again.

Must we go through this rigmarole every 3 months or so, whenever some rag or polling operation needs a boost?

Every time this comes up it's soundly and vigorously debunked by vested interests, we all forget about it and then the Wall Street Journal suddenly wakes up in wet sheets and a cold sweat and realizes it needs to try and be relevant again so it upchucks some post or article about email being dead. Sigh.

The latest round was initiated by a poorly thought out poll done by comScorecomScore which suggested that email usage was down over 70% for web based email services among teens and as teens go, so does the world. The study was fundamentally flawed because jut about nobody uses web based email services in any demographic. Unfortunately more than a few people simply missed the "web based email" part of it and started making assumptions.

Two great posts on this:
www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2028070/dig...age-misunderstanding

www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Artic...45588&nid=124121

The only note of caution I'm going to sound is to those who like to rationalize that kids will conform to email because they will have to in order to function in business. That's quickly moving from fact to rationalization. Rationalizing that kids will simply conform to email because they will have to, is as dangerous as any other rationalization.

Email isn't dead, but the inbox will change and will become lighter. Mobile and the reality of the cross-channel consumer are fundamentally changing both B2C and even B2B CRM. Read up or if you prefer, just rationalize...you'll feel fine till the hangover hits.

I share your petunia-like feelings ...

Why, pray tell, does one medium have to die because another comes along?

People may use texting or DMs or whatever is trendy today for day-to-day casual chatter, but for something you need to save, the options change. and it's nice to have plenty of options.

I strongly suspect as kids move into the business world, they will use the communication tool that works best for the task at hand - it's not a question of "conforming" to anything, it's a question of getting the job done as quickly and efficiently as possible. The tool may be a new one, or it may be an "old" one.

Or it may be an old one, reinvented. As long as it works.

Hand me my fountain pen, will you .....

Just to let you know ... you are not alone! Om Malik (no shrinking petunia) recently tweeted his approval of this article by Jon Callaghan:

Email is (still) the killer app
www.trueventures.com/blog/2011/02/21/ema...till-the-killer-app/

Business runs on email... Email is an enterprise system of record... Email serves as the connective tissue to today’s social web ... The social web gets a lot of it’s social via email, and Twitter and Facebook couldn’t exist without the connective tissue of email... Email is identity. Very few services bridge the physical and digital web as seemlesly as email ... Simple, big, powerful... Much as we love where it’s been, we think where it’s going is even more exciting.

Lynng - brilliant question: "Why, pray tell, does one medium have to die because another comes along?"

I blame the telegraph and it's ignoble end.

Reading that post now Netsurfer and thanks for the link.

Remember when we chip heads were searching for the killer app for PCs? The first two were word processors and spread sheet apps. However, now I would feel confident in saying that email and word processors are the ones. Interesting that both share components of the other and both are fundamentally communication oriented.

Communities drive the web, but what comes first? Communities or communication?

www.socialmarketingforum.net/2011/02/the...gg-and-the-internet/