Noelle Duggins
MCS 244
Professor Jonah Bruckner-Cohen
May 21, 2019
Emails
Emails are messages that are sent from one computer user to one or more recipients via a network. Emails are the original group chats. A person is able to type a message and send it to one person or a group of people simultaneously. It allows the recipient to reply to just the sender or reply to all the recipients. When email was first introduced, the person needed to have a specific software specially designed for emails on their computer in order to be able to utilize their email. The first email was sent in 1971 on ARPANET which was the first step for electronic emails. Emails are becoming more unpopular due to many social media apps.
In 1775 the U.S. Postal System was created with the help of Benjamin Franklin. It was the foundation for the mail service that we know today. Before Franklin, many people use to make multiple copies of one letter and send each copy on a different ship with different routes in hopes of their letters reaching their destination. That type of “postal service” was unreliable because people had no way of knowing if the person received the letter unless they got a response. The postal service made it possible to track letters and packages at any time to ensure the person receives the package.
The fax machine is a type of email that is sent from one machine to the next. The first fax machine was created in 1842. The fax machine allows a business to send photocopies to another fax machine by dialing the number of the machine, placing the pages on the machine that you want to photocopy, press start, then watch the papers be sent in less than a minute. This allowed businesses to send files instantly without having to physically be in the same office. This is a benefit because it allows businesses to communicate or even share people’s files with the click of a button without having to rely on the postal service or rely on people actually opening up emails.
The first precedent is AOL. America Online was one of the first companies to set up a type of online community using instant messaging that transmits billions of messages on a day to day basis. Their original name was Quantum Computer Services which was launched in 1989. In 1991, it was renamed AOL. When it was first founded, it was only available on Apple products. It was then expanded to Microsoft Windows computers in 1993. America Online officially became AOL on April 3, 2006. AOL failed because while the world was changing, they did not. They were unable to update with the new technological advances. Once AOL gained a certain amount of customers they were not interested in evolving their business model as quickly as the Internet.
The second precedent is Hotmail. In 1996, they were one of the first services to offer free web-based email to the world. In 1995, Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith who both studied at the University of Stanford had an idea about communication. They wanted to create a type of technology that allowed people to communicate through the internet without needing any other type of software and without the fear of being spied on. Their idea came to life when they decided to create a service that can be accessible and used by everyone and would be free, secure, simple, and easy to access. To start up Hotmail, Bhatia and Smith needed 300,000 dollars minimum to begin the Hotmail project. Neither of them had any idea on how to get that kind of money to create the alpha version of the program. Draper Jurvetson invested in this small idea because he saw a future for Hotmail. Bhatia and Smith both quit their jobs at Apple Inc. and bought a small office in Fremont, California. In 1996 Hotmail was released to the public as an online service through the internet. Hotmail got its name because of the original logo which spelled out “HoTMaiL” which was an acronym for HTML. A couple months after the release, Hotmail had a million users and many people were impressed that they were able to use Hotmail without the need of extra software. In 1997, Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft was intrigued at how fast Hotmail grew and bought Hotmail for 400 million dollars. After Hotmail was bought it was renamed MSN Hotmail. In 2004, Google went into competition with Hotmail and released an email service that had more storage capacity and an easier way for people to attach photos and videos in emails. In 2011, Hotmail became Windows Live Hotmail and ended up losing customers. People were upset that with the change because they lost their old mail and they ended up switching to another email provider. On April 3, 2013, Hotmail was closed and changed to Outlook.
The third precedent is Yahoo. Yahoo was founded in 1994 by Jerry Yang and David Filo. Yang and Filo were Electrical Engineering graduate students who also had a website called “Jerry and David’s Guide to The World Wide Web”. It was an online catalog of websites that was renamed Yahoo! In 1994. The word Yahoo stands for “Yet Another Hierarchically Organized Oracle”. Yahoo includes features like news, email service, search engine, and a directory. Yahoo failed because it took several losses in numerous opportunities such as purchasing well-known companies like Google, Youtube, EBay, and Facebook. It suffered a lot as a result of the dot com crash in April 2000, and Yahoo was never able to fully recover.
Gmail was launched in April 2004. Gmail became popular because from the startup, they were able to provide a search engine feature that was better than their competitors at the time. It’s main focus as a search engine set it apart from Yahoo, Excite, Lycos and other search pioneers that had recasted themselves as “portals”. Google expanded to everything from weather to sports to games. Portals had a reputation for doing many things like that, but not necessarily doing them successfully. Gmail was a big deal because even though other free email services such as Yahoo and Hotmail were around, they were slow and offered limited storage and clunky user interfaces. Google has an effective software program that filters out any spam and unwanted emails. Gmail is highly popular in today’s world because it comes with so many other apps like google slides, google docs, google sheets, google drive, and google classroom. All of these apps allow the person to share it with others and all of them can work on the project simultaneously. Many students like to get gmail because of all the subscriptions that come free with it like google slides, google docs, and google sheets.
For the future, I believe there should be a more personalized take on emails. There should be a software that has automated replies ready for a person to send rather than the person having to sit there and type the response. This software would be personalized based on the person. Once you would open the email, you would hit the quick reply button and sentences would pop up and the person would be able to pick from there. For example, if your boss sends a mass email saying “REMINDER: Meeting at 10:30 on April 29 in the conference room. Be on time.” the person would click the auto reply button and see “Got it. Will be there on time.”, “Will be there but will be late.”, “Can’t make it.” or “Thank you for the reminder.”. The software will also add the event and time to your phone calendar and remind you the day before and the day of the event. This will make replying easier and helps a person who is always on the move and does not have time to sit and type a reply or add the event to their calendar. There would also be a virtual assistant that will cost nothing to use. This assistant would be able to read your emails out loud to you and listen for the person’s command. Whether it be delete, reply saying …, or block this sender. This assistant could also be programmed by the user to automatically send certain emails straight to spam or to the trash depending on the user’s preference. There would also be a software update that includes showing when a person reads the email. Many people who send emails worry about if the person opened it and have no way of verifying without bothering the other person by asking.
Email as a whole is declining due to a lack of popularity. Majority of the population use emails for school work only or promotions from businesses. For example, people give their emails when they shop to get coupons sent to them. This is a way to keep the customers spending their money at the stores and keeps the customers using their email accounts. Emails are slowly becoming unpopular because many people prefer to text in group messages or fax things over. Google is one of the companies that is keeping emails relevant and alive.
Works Cited
“A Brief History of Hotmail.” IndianWeb2.Com, 13 Sept. 2013, www.indianweb2.com/2010/01/07/a-brief-history-of-hotmail/.
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “AOL.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 5 Oct. 2018, www.britannica.com/topic/AOL.
Brandon, John. “Why Email Will Be Obsolete by 2020.” Inc.com, Inc., 16 Apr. 2015, www.inc.com/john-brandon/why-email-will-be-obsolete-by-2020.html.
“Gmail.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 15 May 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gmail.
Tynan, Dan. “The Glory That Was Yahoo.” Fast Company, Fast Company, 20 Mar. 2018, www.fastcompany.com/40544277/the-glory-that-was-yahoo.
“U.S. Postal System Established.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 24 Nov. 2009, www.history.com/this-day-in-history/u-s-postal-system-established.