Does anyone use email these days?

Sometimes I have to wonder. With the SPAM stats growing all the time (Microsoft recently pegged email as being 97% spam – download the report here – the 97% stat is on p12) and the number of communication mechanisms such as Twitter and IM now considered mainstream, I’m beginning to think that traditional email has lost its place.

And for those of you with nothing better to do than read spam news, you’ll be riveted to know that Symantec releases a monthly State of Spam report (April PDF report here) which outlines the latest spam topics (mortgages, terror alerts are hot this month) and the sources (by far the largest is the US with 28% of spam originating there).

But then you see some little enhancements such as Gmail’s time zone indicator and you realise there’s still life left in the old-school ways yet. Perhaps email will be with us a little longer.

It’s perhaps ironic that most social networks by default will notify you by email when you have new followers, DMs and messages. Far from replacing email, they’re likely a major source of email increase.

(via Ars Technica)