Email

How is email used?

Emails are used for personal or business communication. Each email has a subject, content, signature and one or more recipients. When you click on Send, the email travels to the recipient(s) inbox(es) within a matter of seconds. As bandwidth increases, attachments to emails are also increasing in size with or without the use of compression.

In an Australian study (2008), 75% of those who stated that they used email indicated that they checked their email at least once a day. You can be overwhelmed by the number of messages you receive in your email inbox. There are a number of things that can be done to manage an email overload.

Email is also used to create distribution lists, playing email games, marketing and of course for spam.

Who uses email?

Within the NSW Department of Education and Training every staff member and every student now has access to an email account.

An Australian study in 2008 found that 96% of Internet users were using email. Also in 2008, it was estimated that there were 1.3 billion email users worldwide which was one in every five persons on the earth using email. The top three English speaking email clients in 2009 were Outlook, Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail provinging services for over 65% of these email users. There are regional differences in the popularity of particular email services. In a 2008 U.K. study they found that Yahoo! Mail was almost twice as popular as in the International study. Outlook is reported to be the most popular email client for business.

Email is a particularly popular communication tool with businesses and older and first generation Internet users. However, as new tools become available younger Internet users are finding other ways to communicate.

Why use email?

Email was the first universally available online communication tool. Everyone could have an email address even if they did not have Internet at home. They are provided by many clients on the web (e.g. Gmail), schools, employers and Internet service providers. With email you have your own inbox and address book - a place where you can go to privately manage your correspondence with others.

One of the foremost reasons for businesses using email is the paper trail that is created. This trail can be used to verify that communication has occured and provide evidence of:

• quotes for products or services
• instructions being provided
• questions being asked and answers given
• idea development
• decisions being made

Email is also a very efficient method of sharing files with others by the use of attachments.