I'm not sure who the "many" people the author refers to who think Twitter will replace email, but they are certainly being hyperbolic. I imagine what they real

I'm not sure who the "many" people the author refers to who think Twitter will replace email, but they are certainly being hyperbolic. I imagine what they really mean to say is that some sort of social identity will replace email as our manifestation of self online. That is to say, we used to default to email as the way we ran our Communications (big "C") as individuals. "How can I find you online?" Oh, here's my email address. But are people still identifying themselves that way? 8.3% of online time is spent with email (-28% shrink from last year). 22.7% of online time is spent social networking (+43% growth from last year). [Source: The Nielson Company, June 2010 data] As we grow to use social accounts - Facebook, Google, Twitter - to sign up for stuff and spend most of our time there, the question is: will there be a psychological shift so that I am not uniquely identified by my email address, but rather by a richer and more controllable social profile? "How can I find you online?" Oh, look me up on Facebook. Already, I default to connecting with Not-Quite-Friends by telling them to find me online at my social profiles. Once I give out my email address, I can never take it back, and everyone gets the same priority ("unread") whether you are my mother or a salesman. I don't think anyone rationally disputes that email will always - or at least for a very long time - be something we use as a central way to communicate with people we have close relationships with; family, co-workers, anyone we have high frequency contact with. But the author is - I assume because it's written on StartupDigest - trying to grasp the implications on how startups use these communication channels to reach & engage with customers. In that respect: watch out, email may very well be dying.