
Social networks 'are new e-mail' - ksvs
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7942304.stm
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neilo
I'm resistant of this but curious to see where it leads. I know people who
"don't like email" because "FaceBook/MySpace is easier" and they only ever
send me messages through those applications. At some point it seems there must
be some kind of convergence into a single, shared protocol that multiple
applications can tap into ... a la email but perhaps a bit more personal.
People bemoan privacy issues, but they continually plug away their darkest
secrets into these walled gardens and their illusions of security. Oh crap, am
I ranting? Sorry ...

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blhack
a non-geek sees them as the same thing.

Fire up web-browser->enter web address->Log In->Click on new messages

Its the same as logging in to yahoo or aol for them...we see the difference
becuase (i imagine) most of us have built mail servers. We know all about smtp
and pop and imap. Most of us don't see facebook as email because we're
thinking about the back-end of things.

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unalone
I'll confirm this. Many of my friends and I keep in touch entirely with
Facebook. Getting all their email addresses seems too much an effort when
Facebook has their names already mapped to their accounts.

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mdasen
Absolutely not!

Social networks might be the new instant messenger. Email is a service that
interoperates between networks that almost everyone has. Social networks, like
many instant messenger networks, are services that are closed to those who
haven't signed up with a specific service and try to corner the market through
exclusion.

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bendtheblock
The article mentions this (i.e. that an open standard should be created for
IMs between different social networks). I would say that in most cases this
doesn't even matter, everyone in my social network, and nearly every new
person I meet, is on Facebook, I admit there's obviously a bias there i.e. the
demographic of Facebook members probably matches that of my 'real-life' social
network.

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jaymstr
Sort of. Twitter and Yammer are great for putting things out there quickly to
get feedback or an answer to a question. Private conversations though will
always be important.

That being said, I often appreciate a DM instead of an email because it forces
people to be quick.

