Social networking to overtake business email use?

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Social networking is set to take a chunk out of email use as the main form of business communication, according to Gartner.

During its annual conference, held in Cannes, the analyst firm claimed 20 per cent of business users would choose social networking over the more traditional interaction method by 2014.

“In the past, organisations supported collaboration through e-mail and highly structured applications only,” said Monica Basso, research vice president at Gartner.

“Today, social paradigms are converging with e-mail, instant messaging (IM) and presence, creating new collaboration styles.”

However, Basso said a workplace would only become “truly collaborative, effective and efficient” if these types of communications were made more widely available by business decision makers, giving employees a chance to get used to the new methods.

With the likes of Twitter and Facebook, new employees entering the world of work would be far more used to this type of interaction and, as time continues, these digital natives will make a big impact on the way companies communicate.

“The rigid distinction between e-mail and social networks will erode,” added Basso. “Email will take on many social attributes, such as contact brokering, while social networks will develop richer email capabilities.”

The use of mobile internet and the move towards cloud computing are set to fuel this shift in communication.

For the email services that remain, Gartner has predicted the number run from the cloud will increase by 10 per cent by 2012.

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