Which Media Died Last Night?

First it was direct mail dying. Now it’s email.

Uber-blogger Jason Baer reports hearing lots of talk that email is gasping its last. "Every conference I've been at, and at least 10 blog posts I've read this year, have proclaimed the death of email." As Mark Twain famously said, “The reports of [said] death are greatly exaggerated.”

Baer rightly notes that “... [electronic communication] isn’t a zero some game.. you have to have an email address to sign up for a social network. Further, most of my social network alerts are delivered by email.” Nicely said, Jason (so maybe it's more like email is evolving into everybody's online real ID?) Not quite yet. When Jason asked his Twitter homies what they check first in the morning (email, Twitter, or voice mail), 76% said email was still their first touch point.

Meanwhile, amid the funerals, there also are rumors of pregnancies (GoogleWave) and recent births (Bing). Seems like media life is cycling faster than the fruit fly.

The long and short of it is this: a lot is happening and everyone is predicting something, but, like Heraclitus observed, nobody is in a position to step twice into the digital river, let alone say where it's going to fork or converge. Me? I'm just trying to keep my footing.

p.s. I think I heard that journalism is dead, too. Can somebody tell me where that funeral was? I want to send regrets.

-- scrubbed by Marketing Brillo