[blueplastic]

Did you totally miss Facebook's existence? Teenagers these days don't even use email. Facebook's sucking in the next generation's messages. Email's too slow and asynchronous they cry. Douglas Rushkoff would bet to differ, but anyway. Facebook's unified messaging was kind of interesting, but I might as well be CCing all my email to Kim Jong-un.

[ams6110]

Big as it is, it's still closed. How do I communicate with a person on Facebook when I don't have a Facebook account (I don't). Email has no such barrier: if you have email -- from any provider -- you can email anyone else.

[ta12121]

I thought you could specify a username and receive mail as [e-mail].

[skevvis]

Definitely - when it comes to social communication, there's Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc. And that's bleeding across into professional communications as well, with companies regularly monitoring social networks and engaging with customers on there. But e-mail still remains, for professional communication, the dominant platform.