Salon usually is ahead of the trend, but on this one they've lagged (quite) a bit: a new article, "email is broken talks about the problems that we all know. That said, they do have a refreshing view in the form of interviews to Internet pioneers (though not the usual suspects, which is also cool). A good read overall.

The current workarounds to the problem (all of which are mentioned in the article) don't even scratch the surface of what can be done though!