Short for electronic mail, e-mail or email is information stored on a computer that is exchanged between two users over telecommunications. More plainly, e-mail is a message that may contain text, files, images, or other attachments sent through a network to a specified individual or group of individuals.
With over 2.6 billion active users and over 4.6 billion email accounts in operation, email is the most important and widely used communications medium on the internet.
Email has become an indispensable part of daily business activities in nearly all aspects of commerce. The massive breadth of populations using email regularly can be attributed, in large part, to it’s accessibility and general usefulness.
History of Email
In 1969, the US Department of Defense implemented ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), a network connecting numerous computers across the department for the purpose of communication within the organisation.
On October 29th 1969, the first message was sent from computer to computer on ARPANET.
The first e-mail was sent by Ray Tomlinson in 1971. Tomlinson sent the e-mail to himself as a test e-mail message, containing the text "something like QWERTYUIOP." However, despite sending the e-mail to himself, the e-mail message was still transmitted through ARPANET.
Creator of email - Ray Tomlinson
By 1996, more electronic mail was being sent than postal mail. By the 1980’s, the infancy of the internet, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) had begun connecting people across the world, and email “hosting” sites began to pop up, clamouring for their piece of the pie.
For many new internet users, electronic mail was the first practical application of this exciting new medium. By 1993 the word “electronic mail” had been replaced by “email” in the public lexicon and internet use had become more widespread.
Over the next few years, America Online (AOL), Echomail, Hotmail and Yahoo shaped the internet and email landscape. They pumped in marketing dollars to increase accessibility and expose a vastly wider audience to the benefits of the World Wide Web.In the late 1990’s internet use exploded, growing from 55 million users worldwide in 1997 to 400 million by 1999.
In present there are most IT related companies offer email services for their customers.
Examples : Gmail, Yahoo mail, Hotmail, Outlook, AOL mail, Zoho mail, Apple mail, Mail.com
In present there are most IT related companies offer email services for their customers.
Examples : Gmail, Yahoo mail, Hotmail, Outlook, AOL mail, Zoho mail, Apple mail, Mail.com
