A colleague, IBMer Luis Suarez, wrote an article in the NYtimes on how he is using Social Networking tools to reduce the use of e-mail. And I quote
E-mail can become extinct, if not repurposed altogether, even at big companies like I.B.M. An e-mail in-box no longer needs to be like Pandora’s box.
I am not sure whether I totally agree with this … there is still a place for e-mail. As another IBMer Ed Brill say and I quote
Even if you move all of your collaboration to other tools, there still needs to be a prompt, a push, a tickle, an alert … something that draws you into the collaboration.
And this push or tickle as Ed calls it is usually via email. If somebody comments on a blog post of mine I get prompted about it via email. If somebody follow me on Twitter I get informed via email. If somebody send me a message via Facebook then I get informed via e-mail.
So to answer my own question, no I do not think so. Yes it can reduce the volume of email (an I do not talk about all the spam) in your inbox but totally replace, no I do not think so. I would love to hear your comments about it.