As announced on the forums, we have launched a bare-bones version of private messaging in addition to a number of other updates to our system back end (caching for the geeks who care) in addition to some visual updates (header colors, font sizes).
Private messages are now threaded conversations, with the newest messages at the top. By default you will receive an email notification if you receive a message while logged out, and a on-site notification if you are logged in but you can change your preferences to not send you any email notification of messages.
We will be working on improvements to the feature, including the ability to save friends to a contact list, and we are by no means finished working on it but given the feedback we’ve received we have released them sooner rather than later as many a2kers have indicated that they were sorely missed.
As always, if you see anything wrong or have any suggestions feel free to let us know through the helpdesk. Right now we have plans including: allowing you to restrict who can send you messages and allowing you to delete messages but if you have other suggestions send them our way.