RIM INVESTIGATING MESSAGE DELAYS

RIM acknowledged that many its users have reported delayed message deliveries on Wednesday, although it remains unclear what the culprit might be. “We’re getting reports that some users are experiencing delays,” RIM said on its official Twitter account. “We’re investigating and will update you ASAP.”

This is the second blackeye RIM has suffered since October. A BlackBerry outage affected millions worldwide for several days during October. The downtime resulted in a class-action lawsuit and could cost RIM an estimated $100 million.

LEAKED: AT&T REVAMPS TEXT MESSAGING PLANS

According to a new leaked image (from GearLive) from Best Buy, AT&T is getting ready to change the way their text messaging subscription plans work, with two previous plans being dropped entirely while a couple of new ones get introduced.

Starting on January 23rd, new AT&T customers will have two options when it comes to choosing their text message plans. The first option they can choose is $10 per month for 1,000 text messages, which would certainly do for me, but perhaps not your text-mad teenage daughter. For her, there’s a second $20 a month plan that gives you unlimited texting. Additionally, if you’re in a family plan, $30 will get you unlimited text messages.

Dropped from AT&T’s options are the previous text messaging plans: both the $5 for 200 text message plan and the $15 per month for 1,500 text messages plan. However, if you’re already subscribed to one of these plans, you’ll be able to keep the existing option, although new customers will only have a choice between the two new offerings.

FACEBOOK ANNOUNCED FACEBOOK MESSAGES

Facebook announced Messages today. Facebook Messages incorporate email, Facebook messages, SMS, other chat clients. Eventually VoIP may also be in play. Instead of having some chats here and some texts there, every time you talk to someone it'll be come part of a stream of information.

And while you can collect it all at an @facebook.com email address, it's not mandatory. You can redirect your Gmail messages there, for instance. And yes, an iPhone app update is coming shortly that incorporates Facebook Messages.

Notable differences from regular email? There are no subject lines, no CC or BCC. You can send a message just by hitting the Enter key. It's going to feel like chat. A lot of times, it's going to be chat.

There will also be a threading solution, which records every type of contact you've had with a person in one place. It's a one-stop conversation shop, a way to tell the full story of a conversation.

Facebook will also introduce the Social Inbox, which sorts your personal messages, prioritizing notes from friends and setting aside people you aren't as close with. This is the killer function: as a default, you'll only see messages from your friends (and friends of friends). Junk—from people who are outside of your Facebook circle—will go into a separate folder. And you can move people from one folder to the other (which is nice for those of us whose family doesn't have Facebook). You can also choose to actively bounce any email that's not from a friend. [Gizmodo]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EMAIL

Email turns 41 today.  The world's first computer-to-computer message sent via the internet in 1969.  Two scientist were suppose to send the word "log", however the connection was dropped before they were able to complete the word, leaving the 'g' off making the first email 'lo'.