We’re not going to pull out the old argument of “X isn’t dead, because I’m still using X!” That’s not so much an argument as a statement of entrenchment. However, this is the same kind of argument that was brought up 10 years ago when instant messaging was new and everyone was hopping on that as the new communications medium. Did IM kill email? No. It’s important as hell, don’t get us wrong, but it works alongside email. And so will social networking.

You might someday send resumes or other important documents over Facebook and Twitter, but email is never going to be “dead”. In fact, with push email on your phone, it’s basically as instant as any of the other networks.

Google Wave might also be pretty interesting when the people pimping it out call it what email would look like if it were invented today. It’s too early to tell. But for it to be truly ubiquitous—and it has to be in order to replace email—it can’t be hosted by just one company.

Think of it this way: if people are still using fax machines—f—king FAX MACHINES—on a daily basis, there’s no way that email will be excised from our collective productivity streams. Not when it’s this much more usable by the average person than faxes.

Or you can think of it this way. What information do you use to sign up for instant messaging and social networks? Your what address? [WSJ]

Ping is designed to look like the SMS app, and behaves much the same way. The messages you send arrive at the recipient’s screen instantly—similar to IMs—but also pop up with a Push Notification if you’re not actively using the phone.

It’s basically free SMS for you to everyone who has an iPhone or iPod Touch (over Wi-Fi) as long as you can convince them to sign up for Ping. Even if you can’t, the ones you do switch over might be enough for you to downgrade your SMS plan one notch to save some money.

In the end, this may either be a really useful SMS alternative for iPhones, or a service that’s not different enough from SMS or IM that people will use it. It’s too early to say. [Ping on iTunes via Gear Live]

The app does what was touted this year at the iPhone 3.0 event: display notifications when the app is closed, show you how many outstanding messages you have and basically keep you “connected” to the AIM service even when you’re not actively using the app. The free version is here and the pay version is here.

We personally would go with the free version until the pay version of the better IM apps (Beejive, for example) go live. Boy Genius says it’s live now, but we’re still seeing the old version in the store. [TechCrunch]

From time to time I like to revisit the issue of communication because the options are constantly expanding and it is an interesting ongoing sociological experiment. So, the question is simple: which method of communication do you utilise most?

[Image via Flickr]

No, it doesn’t use Apple’s long lost push notifications. Instead, it uses SMS notifications, for up to 24 hours after you sign out of the iPhone app (you can pick shorter intervals, as well as limit to pinging you only when you get IMs from new buddies, not the people you were just talking to). Hopefully, they’ll get a bit more sophisticated, since right now they just tell you to fire up AIM ’cause you got mail.

Other notable new stuff—free SMS texts to anyone in iPhone contact list, multiple account support and location awareness, so you’ll see buddies in a special new group called “near me.” (You can limit this to buddies, everyone or no one.) It seems to be a little bit more responsive than I remember, too.

Also, AIM is splitting into a paid and a free ad-supported version. So far, I’ve just seen occasional pop-up on the bottom of my buddy list, but nothing while actually IMing, so not too annoying. If you hated AIM before, you’re not gonna like it now, but it’s definitely better. [iTunes, Hat tip Ars Technica]

The key aspect of this handset though isn’t its solid build, but its integration with social media tools like Facebook, MySpace and Instant Messenger. And once again, it does the job amazingly well. Not only is there an integrated iPhone app on the phone, but using 3’s network, it will keep you constantly connected to the service, updating you when you receive a message or when someone updates their status just like you’re receiving a text message.

On top of that, the phone will pull down your Facebook friends’ contact info and merge it with the contacts in your phone, including profile pics. It does the same thing for Skype, too, and presumably MySpace, although I didn’t (and won’t ever) have a MySpace account to check it out. Photos taken on the INQ1’s 3.2 megapixel camera can be directly uploaded to your social media accounts as well.

It’s not the perfect phone though – browsing the web is as painful as every other phone with a 2.2-inch screen, and even though Facebook, MySpace, Skype and Windows Live IM are included, there’s no Twitter, Friendfeed or other social networking programs. There’s also no Wi-Fi, although the phone comes with 3’s excellent data rates, which should get most people through a month of status updates and IM conversations.

Battery life was also extremely surprising – even with both Facebook and Skype running in the background, the phone was still kicking on after a few days use. Hell, one week, when I didn’t use it at all, but left it switched on, it managed to last for a full 5 days.

This isn’t a phone many of us will ever buy, but for the teenage demographic, it’s practically the Holy Grail. At $179 on a $29 prepaid cap it’s extremely affordable, it’s well built, has a 2-year warranty and is more socially connected than the PM on Twitter. If only all cheap phones were so appealing.

Currently, you can connect to “AIM, Google Talk, ICQ, Jabber, MSN/Live, Myspace IM, and Yahoo messenger” with Beejive. With 2.0, you can send in-line photos, audio and video files, PDFs and Office docs to anyone you’re chatting with, provided the recipient has an IM client from the last 10 years.

The best part is the voice message feature, which you can activate with the microphone icon. The worst part is the price: $US16. You do get what you pay for, and Beejive seems to be a pretty fancy IM app. [App Store via TUAW]