View from the Social Inbox

The View from the Social Inbox 2010 report from Merkle suggests that the use of email has shifted with users allocating a greater share of email time to permission email and a shrinking share to personal or social use.

But...the amount of time spent on social emails seems steady as does the number of social emails that are arriving.41% of email time is still spent on social emails

I'd imagine this reflects some switching to other social media for 'socialising' but not the mass movement we may well have expected, while the increase in email marketing whether promotional or service oriented, is reflected in users spending more time with them.

And hope is that users are spending more time with these permission emails because they are becoming more relevant, driving up engagement.