Web Mail Services Market Share (Comscore, Oct 2007)

  Web Email Market (Comscore, Oct07) 
  Originally uploaded by davemc500hats

This is an interesting graphic / stat from Comscore (from Oct 07).  Note that it doesn't reference the recent growth of email on social networking services like Facebook & MySpace, but still it's revealing.

Email is still a very rich (and often overlooked) source of social networking / social graph data, as is IM and SMS data as well.  This is notable if only because 2 of the largest stores of this data are Yahoo & AOL, both of whom are arguably up for grabs / in play.

Also noteworthy: i didn't realize Gmail had made such gains in the space.  I had assumed they were #4 behind Yahoo / MSFT / AOL, but either AOL hasn't kept up with market growth, or Gmail has substantially outperformed in acquiring users since its launch a few years back.  (perhaps a bit of both).

anyway, there's more juice here for an upcoming post i'm writing about monetizing social networks, but needless to say i think i'm not alone in suggesting PEOPLE ARE UNDERVALUING EMAIL AND IM DATA when they consider its impact on social networking, referral / viral marketing, and monetization.

i'll tie all these threads together in my next post, after i finish packing up & moving.  ugh.

Comments

[Ted Rheingold]

Hi David,

You are very correct. For web services outside of a mega-social network traditional email is still the bread and butter of communication. Widgets, embeds and everything else come second for most everyone.

At Dogster/Catster webmail providers account for most of the biggest inbound referrers (outside of search engines) and any viral campaign we do lives and dies by email forwarding. It's very rare for a widget or embed link to get something viral anymore.

I think it's also important to think about how many emails Facebook, MySpace, Flixster, etc. send out a day. Facebook has something like 20 settings regarding getting traditional emails that are all defaulted on when you start. Though Facebook's eco-system has it's own fabulous messaging system which is far far better than email, their growth relies heavily on traditional email.

I know how much we pay for email delivery at Dogster/Catster than most any other IT cost. Sure people can get free webmail accounts, but trying to send mail into those accounts and have it arrive in their Inbox has become a huge challenge.

And yes, I too am surprised to see Gmail's overall percentage. It's really grown quickly .

[Anonymous]

I think the low numbers for AOL stem from the fact that the majority of their mail users still use the non-web-based client to get to the mailbox... not sure gmail has actually surpassed them in number of users.

[Gerald Buckley]

Mr. McClure, Could Google's accelerants be related to their "other" services like Analytics, AdSense, etc. which require/encourage a gmail account? Not certain AOL has that kind of lock-in for... anything.

Google just passed them by on their way up and AOLs way down.

PS- Congrats on the move. Hope all's well.

[John]

Which email service do you reckon will take over as the main player after the Microsoft Yahoo! Take over?

My belief is that they will make them interchangable.. one login for both and then create the same back end to run both.. ultimately 301 redirecting the one url into the other.. So it doesn't make much difference in tech... But the question remains?

Which Brand do you trust? Microsoft and Yahoo!