e-mail going away?
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg just dropped what, for some, might be a bombshell. Appearing at the Nielsen Consumer 360 Conference, she announced that e-mail will soon be going away in favor of FaceBook. Her logic is that teenagers indicate the trends of tomorrow, and only 11% of teenagers currently check e-mail daily. You can listen/see her comments intact on YouTube here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm8NdNy4wOM
Personally, I think Ms. Sandberg is a well-paid spokesperson for FaceBook, and not necessarily being 100% accurate in her assertions. Granted, FaceBook does connect people in extraordinary ways as she states in her speech. What she doesn't address, however, is the lack of privacy in communicating via FaceBook versus e-mail, since e-mail is capable of strong encryption and other security technologies.
The other possible factor that may play into her assertion is that most teenagers I know have to be taught about how to properly use secure e-mail in a business environment. Most teenagers do not seem to recognize the difference between business e-mail and personal e-mail and think nothing of using e-mail at work for their personal messaging.
I am also aware that some other system administrators have banned the use of FaceBook within the boundaries of their networks, for various reasons, security among them.
Perhaps in the future, as new software technology becomes accessible to FaceBook users, they will have a robust and secure form of e-mail for users. However, until then, e-mail is still atop the pile of services that people will continue to use. Of course, your opinions may differ.
Dave