The point isn't that people were being social over email. The point is that people were using email as a social layer on top of the web (i.e., they'd email link

The point isn't that people were being social over email. The point is that people were using email as a social layer on top of the web (i.e., they'd email links around). What we now call the "social web" is just the web as a platform taking over functions that before were performed over other internet technologies like email and IM.