First e-mail was sent 40 years ago

E-Mail might be slowly becoming obsolete, as communication mediums continue to evolve over the decades. E-mail was the first reliable way of delivering a message over ARPANET, which was the base of how the internet would be built. Although the first e-mail was sent back in October 1971, it didn’t become popular till the 90s, which was when the internet reached homes. Ray Tomlinson was the person to first send out an e-mail. The use of ‘@’ to denote that a ID belonged to a particular entity or domain was also his brainchild. The first mail was sent using the a modified SNDMSG application and read using another software called READMAIL. As Internet Relay Chat and then instant messengers arrived on the scene, the importance and reliance on e-mail slowly dithered. 

Still continues to grow

According to a story by The Next Web, some 31 billion e-mails were sent each day in 2001. That number rose to 294 billion in 2010, and it continues to accelerate. A large part of those mails is also likely to be spam. E-mail continues to be used massively in work places. Spam is said to be e-mail’s biggest enemy. An estimated 89.1 percent of all emails sent in 2010 were spam.

More from News & Analysis

What is the US HIRE Bill and why is India’s $250-billion IT sector worried? Is the internet dead? What's this theory that OpenAI's Sam Altman says might be true?