Media Morph: Next-generation e-mail.(Digital)(Xobni provides services for social networking site)(Brief article)

Advertising Age, January, 2008 by Klaassen, Abbey

Byline: abbey klaassen

The premise: One hot online space to watch in 2008: that internet relic we call e-mail. Just when we all thought it was dead, thanks to the massive popularity of social networking, several companies are cropping up to dispel the myth that e-mail is a stodgy way to communicate and position it as the cornerstone of a more efficient social-media experience.

The investments: Consider the moves web giants made late last year. Last fall, Yahoo bet on e-mail enough to drop $350 million to acquire Zimbra, an enterprise e-mail tool. And company execs supposedly are working on a way to use the massive Yahoo Mail service to create a more social-network-like environment. In December, Google began connecting its Reader service to Gmail. Its...