The death of Email is how one of our friends would describe a recent survey. While I certainly don't argue with the trends, there's only one problem - the emergence of these "new" forms of communication only validate that the purist original form of Email had it right all along.

If you missed the era when Email was pure - roughly, up to about 1995 - you missed the good old days. Email back then was short and off the cuff, free of any obligation. You read them in a simple text-only reader like Pine or Mail and answered only if you felt like joining the discussion. There might be pensive introspective musings or frivolity like what you planned to have for lunch. Sound familiar?

Then Email became popular. Lawyers and software vendors swooped in. The law twisted Email from it's original "talking with a keyboard" intent into the "electronic office memo." Are you sure you want that "in writing" was the question, and if you did, you better save it, archive it, and answer for it later. Then there were the software vendors, who in their mad rush to "differentiate and add value" piled everything one could imagine into helpless innocent Email - loading it down with calendars and to-do lists and transforming it forever into an "office productivity application." Not long after formal memo style Email took over for good, followed by spam, until now we even spam ourselves with giant space hogging mandatory signature files complete with legal disclaimers. Looking at my Email client today, about 15% of the screen is the actual content, and it's completely lifeless.

It is no wonder then that IM took off just as Email began to decline. IM was the natural replacement for that spontaneous human interaction we loved. But IM has problems - it has no history and no time, only the relentless interface that screams - YOU MUST DROP EVERYTHING AND RESPOND TO MY IM RIGHT NOW! HEY I'M STILL BLINKING!

Thankfully, we have evolved again, to the non-invasive, to the asynchronous "read it if you want, reply if you want" approach that is the paradigm of Blogs and Tweets. Which of course, was the paradigm of Email way back when. We've come full circle. Email is not dead, it's back. We just had to rebuild it as it once was, and give it a new name to throw off the lawyers. It's fun - again. It's social, and off the cuff - again. It's no strings attached, simple and quick communication, like what you're planning to have for lunch today, so don't sue me.

Of course, this means the lawyers (and software vendors) will inevitably get hold of Twitter, Blogs and Facebook, and these too will someday "die" the same death as Email. But don't despair. To paraphrase a line from Jurassic Park, communication "finds a way." These too will be reborn again with some other even crazier new name, and the circle of life will be complete. And some old stooge like me will tell you how Floozecasting is really just like Tweeting was before the lawyers ruined it.

P.S. I've already trademarked Floozecast, so don't even think about it. I'm going to make millions!