"txt-speak" appeared because of the need to fit a communication into 160 characters.
"Emoticons" appeared due to the need to convey an emotional context with your message so that it is read correctly (many times I've written an email and found that it has been read in a totally different manner than I wrote it).
Given that the only thing that is static about the English language is its name, and that there are many variations of it within England alone, does the new-ish phenomenon of txt-speak and emoticons really pose any threat to language?
Even though emoticons could be seen as a return to "picture-words" and "txt-speak" a return to phonetic spellings, is there anything other than the medium they grew from that would separate these from normal language evolution?