The history of email services started way back in the 1960s. It came about as a medium for time-sharing mainframe computer users to communicate with one another. Users were able to send private messages to each other base on systems such the MIT’s Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS) and SDC’s Q32. All a user need to do was to access the system via the remote dial-up terminals.
From there, the basic email technology evolved into network mail. What was limited to time-sharing mainframe computer users quickly increased its network. Users are able to send messages to one another even though they are using different computers.
But what actually brought about the evolution of the email service was the ARPANET computer network. In the early 1970s, Ray Tomlinson wrote mail programs which are able to send and read messages. Other than that, he also “initiated the use of the @ sign to separate the names of the user and their machine” (Wikipedia, 2007, 4). From then on, the popularity of email service shot up.
In today’s world, emails do not only serve the basic functions of creating, sending and receiving messages. There is more to it than a way for people to communicate. Take Gmail for an example. The ability of it being able to provide more than 2,600 megabytes of storage shows that it not only allows people to send messages to one another. Rather, it provides long term storage of important files, messages and even pictures. Emails are no longer text based. Images as well as colors can be incorporated into the messages. “Gmail also integrates instant messaging right into the email experience, so you can stay in even better touch with your friends when you're online” (About Gmail, 2007, 3).
With this feature, email services have been taken to greater heights.
Emails have become part of our daily lives. Just take a look at the statistics. The amount of daily emails sent by one person could total up to 34 emails. And the amount of daily emails that are being sent out could reach a high of 31 billion.
This clearly shows how much time people spend on creating and sending emails per day. Simply by looking at the number of email providers that are available on the Internet, it is clear that email services have indeed been integrated into us.
With the growth of email services, many have benefited from it. Take marketers for instance. Many companies have marketers that uses email to market their products. Such emails are known as HTML email marketing messages. With the use of such marketing messages, emails can be created in a more attractive layout and subscription to HTML email newsletters would not be “plain” to read anymore. However, there would be some companies as well as marketers that would abuse the use of such services. Unsolicited e-mails also known as spams would be sent to multiple email accounts in the hope that readers would read them and get to know about their products. According to Spam statistics, the amount of daily spam emails that are being sent out is estimated to be 12.4 billion. This means that each individual would receive about 6 spam emails in a day.
Although spam emails cannot be cancelled out entirely, email services are capable of filtering spams. “You can help by using the Report Spam button, which removes spam from your inbox and automatically improves spam filtering in the future” (About Gmail, 2007).
Gmail is one of such email services that allows users to report on emails that are considered as spams to them. By doing so, it would prevent those emails from appearing inside the inbox.
In a whole, email services benefits us more than we could ever think of. Without this technology, communicating with loved ones, friends, clients and even colleagues would be a problem. Traditional snail mails would be considered as slow for us to communicate with. And with the current wireless network, emails are accessible almost everywhere and anywhere. With the ability to read and respond to emails almost immediately, work could be done faster and time could be saved.
References:
Rheingold, H. (1993). “Visionaries and Convergences: The Accidental History of the Net”. Retrieved January 26, 2007 from http://www.rheingold.com/vc/book/3.html
History of the Internet. (2006, August 20). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved January 26, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_the_Internet&oldid=70771572
Email (2007, January 25). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved January 26, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=E-mail&oldid=103248299
The Radicati Group. (2006). “Quick Facts”. ”. Retrieved January 26, 2007 from http://www.radicati.com/
Vleck, T. V. (2004, September 10). “The History of Electronic Mail”. Retrieved January 26, 2007 from http://www.multicians.org/thvv/mail-history.html
Gmail. (2007). “About Gmail”. Retrieved January 26, 2007 from http://mail.google.com/mail/help/intl/en/about.html
Evett, D. (2006) “Spam Statistics 2006”. Retrieved January 26, 2007 from http://spam-filter-review.toptenreviews.com/spam-statistics.html
Why People like HTML Email Marketing Messages. (2006) Retrieved January 26, 2007 from http://www.optinnews.com/email_formats.html
