I’m not seeing it yet — at least not in the Facebook messages I’ve gotten so far today — but Mike Arrington says that Facebook is now sending messages straight to you in your email, instead of making you click through to read them. This might seem like a small thing, but it is probably the single biggest irritation to me when using a social network such as Facebook, or Ning, or any one of a half dozen others that do the same thing.

What it says to me every time a social network does that is: “I know I could just send you the message, but I’m forcing you to click through because I’m desperate for the page views.” It’s a thumb in the eye every time you get one of those messages, and I can feel the irritation building as I click through like a sheep — knowing that when I respond, my friend will have to do exactly the same thing to read my reply. This change means more to me than allowing me to opt out of Beacon.