Is the social web killing e-mail?

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg created a bit of a fuss in the digital world recently by declaring that "e-mail is probably going away," thanks to teens' obsession with texting and social networks. Given Facebook's well-chronicled drive to "socialize" Web communications, she's obviously not an unbiased observer. Still, it's a provocative question that people in the ever-evolving tech world have been asking for a while. It formed the topic of this morning's monthly breakfast meeting of Social Media Charlotte, a club comprised largely of social networking aficionados, marketers and technology buffs.

Panelists Greg Cangialosi, Adam Holden-Bache and Jeffrey Cohen agreed that e-mail likely isn't dying anytime soon, given how heavily companies and their workers depend on it. What is happening, Cangialosi said, is that marketers are figuring out how to use e-mail and social networks in tandem. For those of you who regard all advertising e-mails as spam, that's probably bad news. Cangialosi said the practice is still in its infancy, but savvy marketers are figuring out how they can pull your e-mail address and other personal data from sites like LinkedIn and Facebook, and how they can use that to fine-tune their marketing efforts. Maybe they overlay their e-mail list with Facebook and find so many Facebookers that they decide it makes sense to set up a fan page. If you've got a huge following on Twitter, maybe you get a different e-mail from other folks. Perhaps even a nice little giveaway prize in hopes you'll extend the company's message and reach by re-tweeting it to your followers.

Like so much of what's happening with Web 2.0, though, it remains to be seen whether e-mail has a future on the increasingly socialized Web. Will we all talk to each other via Facebook or whatever comes after it? Or will it always be the case that you can't get access to anything on the Web without inputting your e-mail address? Stay tuned...