The future of e-mail

I just realized a couple of days ago how useful for me - with not too much time and lots of new and old projects to work on - is the use of the social networks, in comparison with the classical system of the messenger/e-mail.

I have all the people I need for certain purposes - online - I can talk with them and instantly send messages, while checking periodically about news on topics and subjects I am interested in. The newspapers I am fan of, or the other groups I added on my profile are providing me the necessary updates for what I should read. Plus, from time to time, I have also the occasion to make a bit of fun, while seeing some funny posts and other remarks from more or less virtual friends about various posts.

Of course, in some cases, it is embarassing and disturbing to be able to follow fully this hectic environment. Some friends are excessively busy with their virtual farms, aquariums and mafia wars. But, in time, you develop the selective capacity to select the people you could have a valuable virtual or realtime conversation. As in real life, in fact.

My question is for how long we will consider efficient to keep our yahoo e-mail accounts instead of choosing a larger platform for communication, as Facebook. Recently, yahoo introduced also the possibility to create networks and to keep a certain level of interaction with your friends, via various updates - I always wondered why only now, as long as hotmail, for example, is using this system of years already. But still, we are far of the high level of interactivity offered by the usual social networks.

In addition, e-mail and social networking are directly interconnected: for a couple of months already, Facebook and Hotmail make possible the sharing of updates of statuses, images or videos.

So, given the current technological directions, it is more likely that, sooner or later - it could be count in the matter of months in some cases, as the evolution of the social networking showed already - using only the e-mail will become as obsolete as are now, for example, the yahoo groups.