Fax numbers were replaced by e-mails a few years ago and now it seems that the time for yet another change has come. One in every five businesses worldwide will start using social networking in place of e-mail as a primary vehicle of interpersonal communications, says IT research firm Gartner.

It has also predicted that nearly half the companies in the world will start using services like Twitter in the next couple of years.

These predictions are a part of the Gartner report which covers five social software predictions for 2010 and beyond:

• By 2014, social networking services will replace e-mail as the primary vehicle for interpersonal communications for 20 percent of business users
• By 2012, over 50 percent of enterprises will use activity streams that include microblogging, but stand-alone enterprise microblogging will have less than 5 percent penetration
• Through 2012, over 70 percent of IT-dominated social media initiatives will fail
• Within five years, 70 percent of collaboration and communications applications designed on PCs will be modeled after user experience lessons from smartphone collaboration applications
• Through 2015, only 25 percent of enterprises will routinely utilize social network analysis to improve performance and productivity

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