UK Survey proves “death of email” premature
Thursday, May 20th, 2010
A recent report by British company UK Online Management 
reveals that occasional reports about the imminent death of email are much exaggerated.
As one might expect, the data in the report (collected and processed by Nielson) shows a 65 percent increase since 2007 in the average amount of time each participant spent online.
Social networking and blogs were the fastest-growing sector. Almost a quarter of all online time was spent on these as the pie chart below, which represents the average online hour, makes clear:
On average participants spent 13.5 minutes out of every hour on blogs and social networks.
Instant messaging, regarded by some (like Business Week) as the “email of the future”, was the biggest casualty. Three years ago it accounted for 14 percent of internet time, now it is only 5 percent.
Email, on the other hand, is rising. As the UKOM press release puts it:
In contrast, personal Email, which many predicted to be another casualty of the social networking phenomenon, has actually increased its share of online time from 6.5 percent to 7.2 percent – a relative rise of 11 percent. In absolute terms, Britons now spend 88 percent more time on Email sites than they did three years ago but 42 percent less time Instant Messaging
The full press release can be downloaded from the UKOM web site.
A video clip on the BBC web site explains the significance of the findings in more depth.
[The survey is based on data collected from at least 35,000 people -- 31,000 of them at home and 4,000 at work.]
Tags: email, not apple mail, not mail.app, web 2.0
