Earlier this week, a couple of young girls in Adelaide, aged 10 and 14, were stuck in a drain. Armed with their mobile phones and in serious danger they did what we'd all do - they updated their Facebook status! Rather than call 000 (the Australian emergency services number) - a service that works on all mobile phones regardless of carrier - they used their data connection to tell their friends. One of their friends saw that update and called the authorities.

While this highlights that young people aren't always the best decision makers it also brings to the fore the importance of social media tools. Sure, teens may not Tweet, but Facebook and MySpace still rule. If we think back 30 years (if you're old enough!) the generation that grew up in 1970s would barely have contemplated a world with ubiquitous mobile phones, computers in every home and the Internet. In the same way, I suspect that there's a generation that can't ever see how social media tools will become a pervasive element of our social interactions.

I've previously written about LiveWire, an Austrlaian social media service that's specifically designed around the needs of children with long-term illness and their families. Also, following the bushfires that calimed almost 200 lives in my home state, Victoria, earlier this year, it became apparent that tools like Facebook and Twitter can be important for communicating with masses of people in a short time.

My gut feeling is that stand alone email will fade away over the next few years. Sure it'll hang around for a while after that (it took Telstra several years before it killed off the telegram service even though email and SMS had completely negated the need for it and I suspect that there are still a few telex machines lying around offices gathering dust). It'll be Facebook or its successor that become the main communication tool. It'll start with social contact and enter the enterprise through the backdoor.