There are few phrases that are buzzing about more today than "social networking."  Getting past questions of who has the time or inclination to meet on-line, what is being discussed is a way to connect, share, and communicate on an individual or a group basis electronically (on-line).  So, this got me to thinking – isn’t this what email does already?  Yes, I know there are big differences between the popular site du jour (Facebook et al) and sending emails, but fundamentally aren’t we talking about the same thing? 

From our collective friends at Wikipedia, here is the definition of a social network:

"A social network is a social structure made of nodes (which are generally individuals or organizations) that are tied by one or more specific types of relations…"

Sounds like email to me, but I have a bit of bias here.

Here’s a few quick points on my thinking:

1.  It is active, not passive

A network is only as valuable as your use of it.  Look at your Sent Items – this is your social network and it includes both personal relationships as well as business relationships.  The Inbox is also indicative of this, but there is no real barrier to someone sending you an email however, as the sender, you are pushing a connection to someone you have or aspire to have a relationship with.  Also, you probably have many more Contacts than you have active relationships as indicated by your Sent Items/Inbox.

2.  Used ubiquitously

No need for viral marketing campaigns or user adoption curves here.  Everyone knows what email is and how to use it.  More importanly, they already are.  Regardless of your interface (client or browser), you know how to compose, send, and read an email.  You can also share pictures, music, and other types of files with the click of a button.

3.  Growing

As Mark Twain stated "The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated."  The same can be said of email in that regardless of how antiquated/bad/inefficient it is, it is growing in usage both in terms of people and overall volume.  One of the recent stats I saw from Radicati Group put the number of email users at over a billion sending some 50 billion emails per day (this subtracts out the ~70% or so that are spam/virus). 

4.  Dependable

When you send it and it does not bounce back, you are confident the recipient got it.   Whether it has been read or not is another question, but you have confidence that the system delivered your message.

No doubt that there are not only new ways to interact on-line but new habits being brought to the workplace by the next generation of workers.  It is possible that these new approaches will take the personal out of email leaving it behind to focuses on business purposes (moving files, broadcast messages, formal customer/partner communication, etc.).  But rather than build entirely new ways for people to communicate and connect, why not leverage how they are already doing so?