This past Monday, the WSJ featured an article by Jessica E. Vascellaro entitled, “Why email no longer rules…”.

The article is a discussion about how social media tools (Twitter, Facebook, Google Wave, etc.) have dethroned email and are changing the way we communicate. The following are some of the main points the article tries to get across.

(from BusinessWeek Magazine) While Twitter has had remarkable results in times of crisis, companies that jump in just when an emergency is breaking have joined too late. Their customers don’t know they are there. It takes time to establish your credibility in Twitterville and you need to understand how it works before that credibility gets tested.

One in five (20%) tweets posted on Twitter contains some type of inquiry or information about a specific product or service that is brand-related, according to study by a research team at Penn State University.

The study, which examined the phenomenon of micro-communicating and its value as a word-of-mouth medium, included the review and observation of more than half a million tweets, writes MarketingVOX.

Why CEOs are Interested in Twitter. President Obama tweets. In the U.K, the Prime Minister’s office at #10 Downing Street is tweeting. Yes, more people than you imagine are “tweeting” these days – sending short 140-characters-or-less messages using the social networking tool called Twitter.