When it comes to communication, Email is a very common term. Email has
revolutionized the way of communication. It has removed many limitations of
communication and allowed us to communicate with more than just texts. But
most people do not even know that the term ‘Email’ is just an abbreviation and
there is also a full form of Email.
In this article, we have briefly covered the most important topics of Email,
such as Email full form, what is Email, a brief history of Email, Email
protocols, benefits, and more.
What You Will Learn
What is the full form of Email?
The meaning or full form of Email is "Electronic Mail". Email can also be written as 'email' or 'e-mail'. After the introduction
of the Internet, email is the most essential service that works with the
Internet. It helps people connect easily, and shares their thoughts or files
using a unique email address.
The term electronic is used here to indicate that communication is established
with the use of electronic devices, while the term mail indicates digital
messages (or files, or both) entered through those devices.
The full form of Email can be explained as:
| E | Electronic |
Let’s talk about what an Email is:
What is an Email?
Email is one of the easiest ways to exchange digital data (such as texts,
documents, media files, etc.) between electronic devices over electronic
communication systems using the Internet. It is an effective and relatively
easy way of communication and connects people from all over the world. Emails
can be sent anywhere in the world to any single person or multiple people.
This is known as broadcasting.
These days most companies are using email to connect with customers as well as
other business partners, marketers, etc. One of the big advantages of email is
that we can also use some basic formatting, font design, font colors, and HTML
structures to make our email more attractive. To send a message or mail, we
only have to get the email address of the recipient.
Note: An email address refers to a unique id or address at which a mail
is to be sent. It usually contains a unique username and the domain name of
service providers, which are joined with a sign ‘@’. For example-
example@gmail.com, where ‘example’ is a username and ‘gmail.com’ is a domain name of the email
service provider (which is Google in this case).
Brief History of Email
Back in 1960, the email system came into existence. However, there were some
limitations in the early days, such as email service was possible only when
both the sender and receiver were online. Additionally, another limitation was
that email could only be sent or received when both users were using the same
computer.
Later in 1971, an American computer programmer named
Ray Tomlinson implemented an email
service on the ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) system. At
that time, there was no Internet and ARPANET was the precursor to the Internet
system. He was the one who introduced the '@' sign that helped distinguish a username from the users' system name. With
continued development, he could eventually come up with a program to send
messages to various computers connected via ARPANET, as well as to send
files.
Since Ray's email system was limited to a single network, i.e. ARPANET, more
developments took place. In 1978, an Indian programmer named
Shiva Ayyadurai created an email
software program and in 1981 registered copyright under the name 'Email'. He
is the person who actually coined the term email and it is Shiva's email
system that we currently use.
Email Protocols
There are mainly three different types of protocols used in email. They are:
• IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol)
• POP (Post Office Protocol)
• SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol)
IMAP allows people to check the received mails from anywhere within the
network range. POP allows authenticated users to recover (or download) mails
from the remote server. SMTP is used to forward emails from one server
to another; it also stores tags, access provider name, recipient name, and
email address.
Benefits of Email
Some of the most common benefits of using email are the following:
• Emails are delivered much quicker than traditional postal services.
• Emails can be sent anytime (24 hours a day and 365 days a year).
• Emails can be sent to an individual or group of people
simultaneously.
• Emails are free to use on the Internet.
• It is not compulsory to download any software; emails can be directly
accessed using any browser (called webmail).
Popular Email Service Providers
Nowadays, many email service providers have emerged. However, the most popular
email providers are Hotmail, Gmail, and Yahoo! Mail. Gmail (short for 'Google Mail') is the most popular of the three.
Hotmail
Hotmail was developed in 1966 by two individuals, named Jack Smith and Sabeer
Bhatia. Hotmail is one of the oldest email service providers that we still
have currently. It became available for commercial use in 1996. Soon, the
company was acquired by Microsoft in 1997 and Hotmail was renamed MSN Hotmail.
The name was later changed to Windows Live Hotmail before the final rebranding
as Outlook.com in 2013.
Gmail
Gmail is the most popular email service provided by Google. It was first
provided as part of a beta release in 1994. At the time, there were some bugs
or issues that the company was working on during testing. Later in 2009, Gmail
was released for commercial use. Google was a popular brand, and therefore,
Gmail surpassed all other competitors and became increasingly successful.
Additionally, it was free to use, provided up to 1 GB (which is now 15 GB) of
free storage for email, and supported multiple languages.
Yahoo! Mail
Yahoo! Mail was released in 1997 by Yahoo, a US-based web provider that
was founded in 1994. Yahoo! Mail was liked by people and was an instant hit
due to its easy user interface and features. Besides, it was made available in
about 27 languages, more than the competitors of the time. This contributed to
some extent to the success of Yahoo's webmail service.
Email vs Gmail
The main difference between email and Gmail is that email is a way to exchange
electronic messages or digital data between electronic devices via the
Internet, while Gmail is one of the email platforms (or client, or service
provider) that lets users use email service with easy GUI support and extended
features. It is not easily possible to use an email service without an email
client or email service provider.
Summary
Email (stands for ‘Electronic Mail’) is a means of sending texts, documents,
media, and other digital files between electronic devices via the Internet.
Besides, an email client or platform is always required to obtain an email ID
or email address to begin using email. Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, and Hotmail are
some most popular email clients (email service providers).
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