Every so often a new technology comes along, promising to revolutionize the world of communications. And in the end, it prays at the altar of email. Despite being messy and unstructured, email, which will turn 50 in a couple of years, remains the hub of our Internet experience.

Take this morning — I opened my inbox to find a dozen Twitter direct messages and a few replies to my posts on FriendFeed which, in turn, I replied to via email, Google Reader alerts (with links shared by my network), and a barrage of Facebook messages (pokes, new friends, etc.) This morning, Facebook was on my bad side because for some odd reason, I received an email saying the settings for what I want (only events-related information) had changed. I wasn’t sure how or why, but that happens. I grumbled a little, shook my fist at the Facebook gods, and then went back to change my settings.

Given that these services are meant to be alternatives to long-in-the-tooth email, I find their relationship with the medium ironic, because these (and most web services) need the aging technology to