History Of Email and Gmail Updates

Just visualize the next mentioned scene for a moment. Before three decades, how did your father usually communicate to friends and relatives who resided in other States and foreign countries? By post/telegrams. In case of an emergency, it was the telephone. Now compare their times with the present one. Regardless of the distance, we easily communicate via various platforms. Email, mobile phone, WhatsApp, virtual learning and so on. In this article, we will focus on the history of email and updates regarding Gmail.

Do you know the number of users of email in recent times? It is a staggering 2.6 billion.

With reference to the business industry, an email comes across as an irresistible part of everyday business activity. It is easily accessible and has valuable resources for making life easy for the users.

Now, shall we look at the very roots of how the email came into existence?

It was in 1965, the foundation of e-mail got written via computers at MIT. The program was called MAILBOX. So, if you are an MIT computer user, you can easily leave the messages in this program. The other person can see the messages once they logged on the computer. Quite an invention at that time! But the program worked only if the people used the same computer and were in regular coordination with each other.

When a University could do such innovation, will the Defence be far behind? A year before 1970, the US Defence introduced the ARPANET or Advanced Research Projects Agency Network). In short, the name points to a network where several computers got connected in the department, mainly for communication purposes. The date is October 29, 1969 and it was the day that the first message was sent to every computer via ARPANET.

But the breakthrough occurred soon a year after 1970. Ray Tomlinson, the name we have to hold in reverence, invented the electronic mail or email, by designing the email system of ARPANET.

  

The invention paved the way for more companies to take notice and very soon, the concept began to be followed in every US department. But, they faced challenges. When more systems were connected, sending of messages became a complex issue. But Ray Tomlinson invented just one symbol which solved the problem. It was the @ symbol and his most noteworthy contribution to date. The discovery paved the way for organizations to send even mails outside to clients and customers.

In fact, just imagine the importance of this communication part. The email passed from one computer to another within the organization and from one company to another. Don’t you think that this paved the way for the internet discovery?

The concept picked up from zero to the point of tolerance. Inter-organization mails and extra organizational emails became famous, that a new design had to be put forward for storage and organization of emails. This challenge paved the way for the recent ‘INBOX’ in every email provider.

In the 1980s, when the internet was in its infancy, there were many companies in the guise of Internet Service Providers who started connecting people across the world. There were many email hosting sites in the market, and each fought tooth-and-nail for their share of a business.

However, for the general public, electronic mail was THE first practice usage of the exciting new platform called as electronic mail.  In the early 1990s, presumably, the year 1993 saw the spelling of electronic mail change to email. But, by this time, the use of internet happened all over the globe.

In the next years, from 1993 to 2000, it was the email companies who changed the landscape of email and internet. Some of the popular sites are America Online (AOL), Yahoo, Hotmail, and Echomail. They started marketing their products to the brim by pumping

millions of dollars in the market. In 2000, despite the threat of Y2K, and dotcom bubble, the users of internet exploded from nearly 55 million to the extent of 400 million.

It was the right time for Satan to strike at the heart. Marketing gimmicks exploded, and everybody’s email got filled with spam. Then the email sorting software was invented. When the events at 2000 unfolded, the Y2K was gone, and having an email address was considered a necessity rather than a luxury. The email age had begun.

History of Gmail

Have you ever heard of a product that was launched on April Fools’ day and went on to become a success? If you don’t, then forget the other products. Just remember Gmail from Google. And it happened in the year April 1, 2004. The main reason, Google announced one gigabyte as storage in its opening phase, many of the industry experts took the advertisement for a good joke. And do not forget the fact, it was an April Fools’ day.

The Gmail came, settled and picked up the frenzy. In some time, it blew away the prevailing email providers of those times, such as Yahoo mail and Hotmail. Yes, they were free. But they had other drawbacks. You need to keep deleting the existing mails to receive a new one. With a revolutionary server and vast storage capacity, it may have become the reason for the popularity of the recent software at present - cloud technology.

It also provided other options, far ahead of its time. It came with a search feature, the prominent one in all the new emails. But in other emails, you had to squeeze the brain for the perfect email.

  

There was another advantage. Yahoo and Hotmail were designed in the middle of 1990s. Their code was completed in plain HTML. So, if you have to do an activity, the complete web page had to reload, and it did not have the active response. But with Gmail, the code was written with the hyperactive JavaScript.

The change gave another advantage. Unlike other emails, new messages need not be sent for a older one. It introduced the concept of threads, where you can just reply. The older discussion threads will be concealed.

But the work that went to preparing the form was huge. It was in the backstages for nearly three years. By April 2nd 2004, the public came to realize that the advertisement was not a hoax. In fact, the one GB appealed to one and all. Other than the invitees, a huge demand arose. The email service became so popular, that the invites were sold on e-Bay. In those times, at the particular months, having a gmail account meant part of the luxury or elite club.

Every year from 2004, Google increased the number of invitees, but still kept its numbers and access secret. It was not until after a few years, that the account was made open to all.

Recent trend

Now in 2018, the overhaul has come. There are new updates that are yet to be released from the Google stable. Let us focus on the new updates

Confidential Mode - You can send the email with the confidential message to a specific person. He/she needs to enter the code to open the mail.

Snoozing email notifications - You work in a high profile job. You are accessing the mail via the app. You feel that some emails need the laptop or PC keyboard to type. So, you can snooze these emails and make them appear at the specific time.

Smart replies - You are driving a car. Your friend calls. You need not pick the call but can send a message. This option is getting more features in Google.

Offline - you can work without an internet connection. The Mode is easily made available in the version 61 browser of Chrome (desktop browser). Previously, Gmail can be accessed and worked by via the Offline app (once again Google Chrome), but the move by the company to provide desktop version is a welcome one.

Let us imagine, you work in a company which offers doorstep repair services in Pune. Being a senior level executive, you handle the home appliances segment. A customer calls for repair, such as microwave service in Pune by a mail. You have had an electricity blackout, and the internet facility is not available. So, you open the required content, read it. Since the traffic was immense, you typed the appropriate reply and saved it in drafts. You reach home and send it to the concerned department. The actions performed offline is saved automatically in the drive.

How to enable this option

Agreed, the offline Mode is available in the desktop version, but it does not get activated. You need to enable in Settings, Cogwheel Icon. But before making the check, ensure you are using the new email version. Then you can do the required activity, click on Enable Offline Mail. When the new options get enabled, then the customizations and amount of stored information are given. You get the option to store the data in days. You can keep the data in a local way in the personal computer or you can discard them after logging out from the computer. But in case of G suite, you need to take the permission of the administrator.

Conclusion

So, mentioned above is the information about email. Gmail and recent updates. Have we missed a point? Then feel free to drop a comment.