If you'd like to program a distributed application that has producers and consumers decoupled in time and space, you can try to use any of a bunch of off the shelf message queue services, open source or closed from the big boys.
You could also try to ressurect the glory days of tuple spaces. Good luck!!
Or you can sign up for an Amazon developer token and use their remotely hosted, Web services based messaging queue. No muss, no fuss, no questions asked, just queue away. The dang thing even has a REST interface!!
How sick is it, that the world's biggest bookseller is the world's best web services provider? Google's not evil, and Yahoo!'s rich, but nobody walks the walk better than Amazon. They don't strut about telling us how many PhD's they have or cooking up obtuse billboards as job applications. They just create and support interesting tools that people can really build upon.
I have to believe this is some scheme to get real world pounding on a core piece of their infrastructure, for relatively low risk and payout. Oh and if it really catches on, they can start billing to boot.
Okay, we'll ignore that ugly little 1-click patent wart there for the moment.