Part two of our exclusive research is out and the results confirm what a lot of us in email have felt for a long time – email is in desperate need of an overhaul. Look, email has changed very little over the last 15 years, despite the evolution of the Internet into a social gathering place. In fact, what little innovation there has been over the last 8 years has been protectionist in nature in order to save the medium from spam. At the same time, the shifting online paradigm and rise of social networks are challenging email for the attention of the online consumer. In fact, according to a recent study by Nielsen, "member communities" now exceed email participation by 67 percent to 65 percent – and that difference is even more pronounced with Gen Y users. So we asked our Gen Y panel about email and the social internet and here is what they had to say:

- Marketing email is not relevant according to Gen Y consumers – only 28 percent of those surveyed believe the email they get from companies is relevant

- Gen Y consumers are eager to see “innovative services” that allow them to better control, organization and manage email coming from brands. Specifically, 
    o 78 percent would like their email client to automatically categorize and delete expired promotional messages 
    o 62 percent would like to communicate directly with retailers about their favorite products in exchange for getting the best prices from them 
    o 44 percent say they’d subscribe to an email service that collected and summarized multiple offers of interest to them     
    o 32 percent say they’d share promotional email offers with members inside a social network and open emails from others

- More than half of Gen Y consumers (51 percent) say they’d join a separate social network dedicated to managing brand interactions

It seems to me Gen Y is not asking a lot from email, especially in today’s semantically intelligent digital world – or are they? Let us know what you think.

PMN members interested in getting a copy of the complete survey can email info@thepmn.org.