Earlier quoted context omitted.
True, which is probably why google put im right next to the message viewer in gmail. I know of many ocassions where a flurry of emails turned into an im session. I think gmail's "conversations" are really the first try at what I'm talking about, a new front end on email, but I don't think they work well enough personally. And they haven't really expanded well on the concept recently.
Google Wave was really what I thought the ideal marriage between email and IM. Why did it fail again?
forgive any appearance of snark; i just wanted to be concise, and i don't think that "the ideal marriage between email and IM" is something that people were - or are - desperately crying out to have.