It's in the mail ...

With 80% of email being spam these days, its hard to believe that anything of value is conveyed by this most basic and popular of internet services.  But it is possible to send money to an email address, and many websites use email addresses as usernames to access other systems that get even more done.  But in the future maybe we will be able to convey more complex things by email? 

Well, I'm sure that we'll invent a more suitable protocol than email but often the first idea of conveying stuff uses the most basic and best understood means available!  So what about when we begin to convey our emotions in real time over the net?  And the more awkward senses like smell and taste which are as yet not included in A/V?  Advances in haptics mean that we can already cope with touch.  Augmenting the sometimes very sterile online world with all of these additional characteristics will bring far more value to Internet communications, however much spam exists by then!