Social Networks Now More Popular Than Email, Report Says
from the you've-got-a-poke dept
A new report says that “member communities” — sites like social networks and blogs — are now more popular than email. The Nielsen report says that two out of three internet users, in the eight countries it tracks, visit social sites more than email sites visit member communities, a higher percentage than use email. Though usage remains behind search, portal and PC software sites, the social-site usage is growing at a far faster pace than any of them. The methodology here is a bit odd, and the classifications of sites not immediately clear, but, if anything, the report underlines how users’ online time, as well as their communication, is shifting towards social networks and, perhaps, away from email. This makes sense: as more and more people are spending more and more time inside social networks, it follows that they’ll communicate within them, rather than outside them via email. Email still has tremendous value, but also brings plenty of problems, from spam to annoying reply-all responses. As long as in-social-network communication can improve on this experience and offer benefits over email, its use will continue to grow. But that advantage can be fleeting, particularly as problems like spam move to social networks. If social network-based communication becomes as polluted as email, it can’t expect to hold its popularity for long.
Filed Under: communication, email, social networks
Comments on “Social Networks Now More Popular Than Email, Report Says”
Method of Measurement
That’s of interest, but what would be even more interesting is how they determine this. The article sadly does nothing to answer this question.
who goes to email sites?
I know I never go to email sites, that is what pop3, imap, and exchange are. The only time I ever go to webmail is if I’m away from all my computers and don’t have my iPhone.
Internet time not web "sites"
The Nielsen report says that two out of three internet users, in the eight countries it tracks, visit social sites more than email sites.
Carlo, maybe I’m missing something, but I just don’t think that this is accurate. Neither the article you linked to nor the Nielson study link uses a unit of measure of “site”. As another poster pointed out, this would make no sense as many people — I would guess most people — don’t access e-mail through “sites” i.e. web sites, but instead through e-mail applications.
Here’s a quote from the Nielson study at http://www.nielsen-online.com/pr/pr_090309.pdf …
In spite of the fact that the area of Internet usage which has gained the majority are types of web sites, it seems clear from their own results that Nielson’s unit of measure for the study is time, not “sites”
Re: Internet time not web "sites"
Hi Hulser,
Thanks for the comment… you’re right in that I mischaracterized it, but you’re not right about the measurements being about time. Nielsen’s “popularity” claim is based on based on the percentage of internet users that access the different types of services (see the full report (PDF) for more).
Thanks for keeping me on my toes.
Newspaper Social Network
The Bakersfield Californian newspaper launched an online social network, called Bakotopia.com, aimed at reaching nonreaders.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2009/tc2009038_509195.htm?campaign_id=rss_tech
Social Networks Are Better At Getting Rid of Spam
Social networks only let other users email you. You still get spammed, but if too many people report it as spam, that user gets deleted.
Re: Social Networks Are Better At Getting Rid of Spam
Really? Because I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve received spam in my gmail account since the service was brought online. Maybe you should stop using yahoo if your webmail experience is that bad, just sayin’.
The great irony here being that e-mail’s “reply all responses” problem is the foundation for many social networks.
I don’t know that social media can become as polluted because you choose you follow. It’s easier to manage in that regard, because it’s so nice not to have to weed through the junk mail!
I actually access Twitter and Facebook on my webtop whenever I log on – it’s my preferred medium for easy interaction with colleagues, clients, and friends. And since I’m already on Twitter and Facebook for social reasons, it gives me one less application that I need to open and weed through.
my opinion
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Well, just like letter, e-mail is a good carrier of our feelings, we can share our feelings with friends,lover,etc. But how often we wrote to our friends or lover through letters before? And how often we write to our friends or lover through e-mail today? Share feelings is always difficult, no matter when. But on other aspects, such as information searching, many things become easy. So I think this may be one reason that make social networks more popular, because we need more information.
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