Yesterday, Yahoo announced its new social, extensible email Inbox, almost a year after Founder Jerry Wang unveiled it during his keynote address at CES. This new destination blends social media with smart inbox functionality to filter “important” emails and present those towards the top of your Inbox, pushing newsletters and other commercial communications down towards the bottom.

Because this functionality is linked to Yahoo’s social media functionality – you have to befriend someone in order for their emails to take priority – this will initially spell bad news for email marketers. It is unclear whether or not they will allow individuals to befriend a brand, like they can on Facebook or MySpace. And if they do, how will they determine who has the right to send priority email on behalf of that brand?

If you haven’t tested it yet, this might be a good time to look at StrongMail partner Goodmail. Their Certified Email product is a paid service that can ensure priority Inbox delivery to Yahoo though this period of uncertainty.

With 275 million users worldwide, Yahoo represents approximately half of the world’s webmail accounts. These changes will pose significant challenges to email marketers unless Yahoo offers them a way to engage with their recipients. But for now, we’ll have to wait and see how unpredictable inbox placement will affect our powerful marketing channel.

This afternoon, I was busy preparing for my panel at this week's MediaPost Email Insider Summit. Travel was confirmed, conference calls were rescheduled, and I took a look at the event agenda to plan my attendance at a variety of rock solid sessions to learn the latest developments in the email channel. I did not get very far. I stopped at the first morning’s keynote: "Next Generation: Does Email Have a Future?"

Come on. Am I the only one who thinks this is a bit over dramatic? I know that at the end of the day this session is going to be an excellent opportunity for all of us to get a view into the new media channels that are redefining integrated marketing programs online, but do we need to go as far as to suggest that email is dying?

In recent weeks, I have been fortunate enough to see some exciting new programs that leverage social networks and experiential marketing to drive compelling brand experiences. Of particular interest was Tim Collins’ presentation at the Canadian Marketing Association event in Toronto entitled "Navigating Toward Marketing Mastery; Guideposts for a New Marketing Era." Mr. Collins is Senior Vice President, Experiential Marketing and Social Media at Wells Fargo. Tim walked the audience through a variety of unique and exciting programs at Wells Fargo, from the online community StageCoach Island to blogs like The Student LoanDown. Instead of killing email, these innovative programs are actually creating additional mail streams that need to be designed, deployed and managed.

Sure, the role of email will change as it becomes less isolated and more integrated with the rest of the direct marketing mix, but I am confident that email has a real future. So please, enough with the death email. The channel is alive and well, albeit a tad less sexy than a decade ago!