According to a survey from Datran Media, reported over on Marketing Charts, an “overwhelming majority” (that would be 80.4%) of marketers say email is the top-performing advertising channel. Not the top-performing online channel, the top-performing advertising channel.

Meanwhile, the retail world is loving their email marketing: eMarketer reports that email marketing was on the increase throughout 2008. It’s reasonable to expect that trend to continue throughout 2009.

Takeaway for marketers: As the economy pounds advertising budgets, we can expect email marketing to increase. Inboxes will become more crowded than ever — which makes it more important than ever for companies to (a) respect those inboxes, and (b) speak in the most human, authentic terms possible. In other words: what they should have been doing all along.

That headline above is also the headline of an interesting article that goes on to note that “the world has received the greatest material setback in its history.”

It then asks: “Is there ground for sober optimism? Yes, if we hold on to our fine qualities, if we have broad and clear-thinking leadership.”

It’s from the July 1919 issue of Popular Science. Read it here.

Here are two good articles worth your time in between picking up the dry cleaning and running out to the hardware store: In Business Week, B.L. Ochman debunks six social media myths, while over on Mashable, Tom Smith talks about why big brands are struggling with social media.

“Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”
—Theodore “Dr. Seuss” Geisel

This is pretty cool — the New York Times has set up its own “article skimmer,” sort of a Times-specific iGoogle or Netvibes or Protopage that lets you easily browse the “paper” section by section.