• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, May 23, 2008

At the Summit yesterday, the attendees largely agreed that text messaging has a robust furture. But most left no doubt they believe email will continue to be the principal form of communication over the near and long-term, and fertile ground for email marketers.

Their belief was augmented by a report released by ExastTarget. Part of the survey found that 95% of U.S. online consumers have given at least one company permission to deliver messages to them via email. That's compared to 7%Â for text messaging.

Still, the report augured changes could be coming as a younger generation ages up, finding that among teens 15 to 17, text messaging is the most common form of personal written communication. The demo uses texting 42% of the time vs. email at 27%.

To be fair, it's hard to tell what this might mean: But AT&T said yesterday it set an all-time record for text-messaged votes on the just-concluded season of hit "American Idol." More than 78 million votes came in, up from 64.5 million last year.

A caveat: People can only vote via the phone or texting -- email is not an option.

AT&T began facilitating text-messaged "Idol" voting in 2003 for the show's second season. Back then, the practice was mostly used by so-called "early-adopters."

But AT&T took the chance to unleash an AL Gore-invented-the-Internet-type boast Thurdsay: "AT&T's sponsorship of 'American Idol' helped put text mesaging on the map."

Seems without "Idol," it just may have taken broken through ...Â

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