Email: The revolutionary change of digital communication

Email, that revolutionary digital tool, so relevant today, has had a fascinating evolution. Taking a look at its development over the years since its creation is interesting. The birth of email occurred more than five decades ago as an early attempt to establish a rudimentary method of communication between computers connected through a network

In these few decades since its origin, it has evolved very quickly. It has even been capable of adapting to new challenges throughout the course of the years.

Today, let’s revisit some key points about its development and growth, which we believe will captivate our readers. Those interested in the journey of this technology will undoubtedly be intrigued by these insights.

Where email originates

The initial definition of email was born back in the early 1960s, with the creation of the communication system project called Arpanet. The United States Army created this system in subsequent years. In 1971, the communications engineer and programmer, Ray Tomlinson, was the one in charge to the first message between computers. 

He did all of this connected to a network, giving rise to emails. As a curious fact, the use of the “@” also had its origin in that first message. He used the “at” symbol to separate the username and the computer used to send the message. A convention still in force today.

Parts of the email

Before we go further, let’s first look at the basic parts of an email. You can set up and access an email account with just two things: a username (or an email) and a password.

• Inbox: 

It is the place where the account user can see the list of new emails. They arrive sequentially and chronologically. The owner can decide whether to save or delete the oldest ones.

• Outbox:

 In this part, users can review messages sent to various recipients. They have the option to retain received emails based on their preferences and the storage limits of the email platform.

• Spam:

 As the term suggests, these are messages that arrive persistently from an email address without prior consent. This practice is considered abusive and faces widespread criticism from Internet users. We need to be careful where we share our email address or we could face a huge spam problem.

• Recipient: 

The user or person who receives the message.

• Subject: 

It is a brief definition of the idea that you want to convey in the content of the email.

• Body of the message:

 The email body is often referred to as the content of the message. It is the primary section of an email, typically taking up the most space, and is designed to convey the main idea or information in a concise and straightforward manner.

• Attached files: 

These are files that must be uploaded to the message by the sender, they can be images, tables, videos and in general files.

• CC/BCC:

 They offer the sender or the one who sends the email message the possibility of sending an identical copy to a third user or even many users who is not the direct recipient of the message (cc), and also the option to do so without the recipient knowing (cco).

• Description: 

In the email header, details such as the recipient, subject, date and time of sending, and other relevant technical information are typically specified. These details provide essential context for the user sending or receiving the message.

Accelerated evolution over the years

During the 1970s and 1980s, email underwent refinement, becoming a more structured and better-organized communication system. It was the beginning of the invention of communication protocols between machines with SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) and the expansion and development of commercial email services, its use already growing exponentially in those years.

Massification of email

With the incredible arrival of the Internet in the 1990s, it was the definitive push for its frankly exponential growth, it was also the arrival of email provider companies such as Hotmail and Yahoo!, which, taking advantage of the boom and projected growth of that tool, introduced the massification of postal services for free, giving the support that the project needed, to establish itself as the most popular digital service at that time.

Electronic commerce began its great boom, promising for its time, the future growth of this innovative and practical service, very suitable for trade relations and online sales in general.

Conclusions

We’ve seen that email has grown very quickly, even though it started more than 50 years ago. It began as a clever way to link users through their accounts and has become a popular way to communicate worldwide. 

However, email might face challenges ahead due to the growth of social networks and new digital ways of communicating, especially with the use of artificial intelligence, which could bring some difficulties.