Email stands for Electronic Mail. It is a method to send messages from one computer to another computer through the Internet. It is mostly used in business, education, technical communication, and document interactions. It allows communicating with people all over the world without bothering them. In 1971, a test email was sent Ray Tomlinson to himself containing text.
It is the information sent electronically between two or more people over a network. It involves a sender and receiver/s.
Why use E-Mail?
An email is a communication that happens in real time and can get important data across to people in various geographies. An email is a record of the communications that have happened and is stored on the server of the organization. One has to be very cautious while typing out a mail.
Refer to the article What is an Email Address?
History of Email
The age of email services is older than ARPANET and the Internet. The early emails were only sent to the same computer. Email services were started in 1971 by Ray Tomlinson. He first developed a system to send mail between users on different hosts across the ARPANET, using @ sign with the destination server, and was recognized as email.
Difference between Email and Webmail
To differentiate between email and webmail, we need to know that it’s a working platform. Those types of mail that are sent through the browser are called webmail and those mail that are sent through the specific application and browser are also called email. Gmail is a browser-based email whereas Outlook for Office 365 is a non-browser email service. To send browser-based mail, we just use the internet whereas sending non-browser emails, we need a specific application, and non-browser-based email offered some security-related advantages.
Uses of Email
Email services are used in various sectors, and organizations, either personally, or among a large group of people. It provides an easy way to communicate with individuals or groups by sending and receiving documents, images, links, and other files. It also provides the flexibility of communicating with others on their own schedule.
Large or small companies can use email services to many employees, and customers. A company can send emails to many employees at a time. It becomes a professional way to communicate. A newsletters service is also used to send company advertisements, promotions, and other subscribed content to use advertisements, promotions.
Types of Email
Newsletters
It is a type of email sent by an individual or company to the subscriber. It contains an advertisement, product promotion, updates regarding the organization, and marketing content. It might be upcoming events, seminars, or webinars from the organization.
Onboarding emails
It is an email a user receives right after the subscription. These emails are sent to buyers to familiarize and tell them about using a product. It also contains details about the journey in the new organization.
Transactional
These types of emails might contain invoices for recent transactions and details about transactions. If transactions failed then details about when the amount will be reverted. We can say that transaction emails are confirmation of purchase.
Plain-Text Emails
These types of emails contain just simple text similar to other text message services. It does not include images, videos, documents, graphics, or any attachments. Plain-text emails are also used to send casual chatting like other text message services.
To know about the working of Email refer to the article – Working of Email
Advantages of Email Services
These are the following advantages of email services:
Easy and Fast:
Composing an email is very simple and one of the fast ways to communicate. We can send an email within a minute just by clicking the mouse. It contains a minimum lag time and can be exchanged quickly.
Secure:
Email services are a secure and reliable method to receive and send information. The feature of spam provides more security because a user can easily eliminate malicious content.
To know more about Email Security refer to the article – What is Email Security
Mass Sending:
We can easily send a message to many people at a time through email. Suppose, a company wants to send holiday information to all employees than using email, it can be done easily. The feature of mail merge in MS Word provides more options to send messages to many people just by exchanging relevant information.
Multimedia Email:
Email offers to send multimedia, documents, images, audio files, videos, and various types of files. We can easily attach the types of files in the original format or compressed format.
Disadvantages of Email Services
Malicious Use:
Anyone can send an email just by knowing their email address. An anonymous user or unauthorized person can send an email if they have an email address. The attachment feature of the email be the major disadvantage of it, hackers can send viruses through email because sometimes the spam feature unable to classify suspicious emails.
Spam:
Days email services improve this feature. To improve this feature sometimes some important email is transferred into spam without any notification.
Time-Consuming:
Responding through email takes more time rather than other message services like WhatsApp, Telegram, etc. Email is good for professional discussion but not good for casual chatting.
Popular Email Services
These are some popular email services:
Gmail:
Gmail is the world’s most used email service provided by Google. Today, more than 1.5 billion active users worldwide. It is a web-based email service available on various devices. It supported email clients via the POP and IMAP protocols. Gmail is like other mail services, we can send and receive emails, block spam, create an address book, and perform other basic email tasks.
To access Gmail, we need a Google account. It is just like many services offered by Google by registered users. The creation of a new Google account is free for everyone. The domain of Gmail is xyz@gmail.com where Xyz is your unique username.
To know more about the difference between Gmail and Email refer – Difference between Gmail and Email
Outlook:
Outlook is also a popular webmail service founded in 1996 by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith as Hotmail later in 1997 acquired by Microsoft. It is older than Gmail. Like other webmail services, Outlook supports Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and later versions of Internet Explorer. It has more features like keyboard controls ability that provides more facility to the users.
To access Outlook, we need an Outlook account. It is free to create an account and send mail. It also operates other Microsoft applications like Microsoft Word, Power BI, etc. The domain of Outlook is abc@outlook.com where the abc is our unique username.
Some other popular Email services are Hotmail, yahoo mail, Protonmail, Zohomail, etc.
Similar Reads
What is an Email?
Email stands for Electronic Mail. It is a method to send messages from one computer to another computer through the Internet. It is mostly used in business, education, technical communication, and document interactions. It allows communicating with people all over the world without bothering them. I
6 min read
What is an email client?
Electronic mail (email) can be defined as a process of exchanging information/messages stored in a computer system by using an internet communication system. Emails generally contain text but nowadays media and other types of files can also be attached. When an email is sent then it goes to a remote
5 min read
What is an Email Address?
According to Oxford Dictionary, a "message" is a concept or information conveyed. The information can either be written or spoken. Suppose there is a family of two, namely, A and B. A is at the grocery store buying groceries while B is at home but has to leave for the office because of an urgent cal
3 min read
What is Hotmail?
Hotmail is an email service offered by Microsoft where users send and receive emails. In this article, we will cover a brief explanation of Hotmail and its benefits. Also, we will cover the steps of creating an account on hotmail.com and the steps to reset the password in the Hotmail account. What i
5 min read
What is Email Virus?
Virus stands for Vital Information Resources under Siege. Virus is defined as a malicious program that spreads over the system. The virus needs an initiating host such as a pendrive. Once the host is connected to the system it gets spread over. It affects the system and gets all the confidential inf
4 min read
What is Secure Email?
E-Mail is one of the most efficient methods of communication in the modern world, taking into account modern trends and the increase in the use of the internet. However, the globalization of e-mail or electronic mail as is commonly referred to, comes with its merits, but also have numerous security
8 min read
What is Webmail?
Nowadays digital communication email stands as an important tool in both personal and professional life Webmail is a Web-based email that improves connectivity making it seamless and so has emerged as a good method for accessing and overseeing our email accounts. webmail offers users the convenience
7 min read
What is S/MIME?
Email is probably the most used mode of communication today not only for casual chat purposes but for the transmission of very sensitive information. It could be business plans, personal information, or other important documents, all of which you would want to be sure are safe in your email. S/MIME
6 min read
What is a Scam?
Today, almost every person and industry, like in commerce, government, education, entertainment, etc., uses the internet for different purposes. As we know that internet is the source through which we can get and share information or content with a large number of people in the world. The Internet c
9 min read
What Does “Bcc†in an Email Mean?
Bcc, or Blind Carbon Copy, is a key feature in email communication that allows the sender to include recipients secretly. When you use Bcc, other recipients of the email can't see the names or email addresses entered in this field. This article, "What Does 'Bcc' in an Email Mean?", will explain how
8 min read