i agree with shants there. in person, i have a lot more idiosyncracies in speech and a definite trace of a midwestern upbringing in the way i talk as well as the way i construct some of my sentences. while my gripes with a lot of grammar mistakes is merely aesthetic, i do agree that the internet isn't the same as simply talking. i have the option of reviewing what i write before i put it up. sometimes i don't, and there's an egregious error out there on the internet. typos and all--this (plus that annoying AIM talk, omg!) shouldn't constitute a different grammatical context or whatnot. it's not quite the same as the use of a language changing over time as it's prone to do (and as is the basis for most linguistic studies). i don't think of internet writing as a form of speech because of the semi-real time, reviewable nature of much of what is put on the internet, not to mention that it differs so drastically in its nature from speech in that this system of writing consists so much of errors which would not be detected in face to face speech. it's writing, and perhaps much less formal than, say, a research paper, but it's writing nonetheless.