Social Networking sites are great. They make conversations open, quick and neat. For more intimate conversations, we have message options embedded in these sites. Though we are flooded with ads, at least spam is not a major problem so far. Privacy has been an issue, however, the rapid adoption of these sites makes security concerns take a back seat.
SMS in mobiles has been used from the days mobiles originated. However, there was cost involved. Now with the emergence of apps, people are able to chat by passing the expensive SMS costs and paying only for the internet usage.
Services like skype has given power to people to talk free/ fraction of regular mobile voice costs. People who had resorted to sending mails, can now talk at low/ no cost.
Email (personal) which was an important mode of communication has been losing it relevance. Also most of the mails are cluttered with spam which makes people think twice before opening them. Communication wants to be free and simple.
Comments (3 so far )
Yes simplicity and low/ no cost offered by emails compared to postal letters gave emails advantage over letters. However with the passage of time and advancement in technology, email may have no option but to reinvent/ fill gaps of others/ give way to social networking sites/ apps, etc. May be we could see even simpler technologies than that are present now in the coming years.