Jason Frenzel

MCMA 503

Dr. Steven Dick

December 4, 2000

Electronic mail is considered the "killer app" of the Internet, with approximately 7.3 billion messages sent and received every day (Verub). More people use the Internet for communicating via "e-mail" than for viewing web pages on the World Wide Web. While electronic mail messages have been limited to text for several decades, e-mail messages are becoming more like web pages in and of themselves. And while HTML-capable e-mail has been in use for a few years now, its use has been fairly limited but is slowly increasing as more people obtain and use HTML-enabled e-mail software. With the possible exception of internet content which requires the use of plug-ins for viewing, such as Macromedia’s Shockwave and Flash plug-ins for Internet browser software (although this will likely change soon), HTML-encoded e-mail may contain anything that any web page may contain. This includes embedded JavaScript programs, Java applets, and ActiveX controls (Smith, 1999), graphics, audio, video, and hypertext. If predictions ring true for 2001 (Sterne, 2000), we shall see e-mail client software fully integrated seamlessly within web browser software such as Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer, thus offering a proliferation of content-rich interactive enhanced e-mail experiences for the user that will inexpensively and effectively serve the needs of marketers, content and information providers, and end users alike.

This paper provides an examination of e-mail from its explosive beginnings to more recent developments that allow for the inclusion of content-rich and interactive media within what is known as "enhanced e-mail".

The history of electronic mail is difficult to trace, simply because "much of the early development and ‘paper trail’ of e-mail went on within e-mail itself", and the high cost of hard-disk space led to the deletion of much of this "paper trail" (Mesch, 2000). However, we know that applications that were similar to, or arguably were, electronic mail, have been in use since the precursor to the Internet. Known as ARPANet, it was created in 1958 as a part of the Advanced Research Projects Agency by the U.S. Department of Defense in response to the launch of the Russian Sputnik satellite. Its goal was to technologically keep abreast or ahead of the Soviet Union by connecting powerful computers in the United States. Once ARPANet was actually working in the late 1960’s as a very small but national network, ARPANet provided a means for scientists to send large files from one computer to another via regular telephone lines (Verub, 2000).

Personal messaging applications were also first developed in the 1960’s, with what was first known as "Computer-Based Messaging Systems". CBMS was a means for users to communicate between terminals through a mainframe. These mainframe-based "networks" (though not true networks) were similar to LAN’s (Local Area Networks) in that terminals between offices and occasionally between buildings, were connected. This early form of e-mail was essentially instant messaging, and it required that the recipient be at their terminal when the message arrived, or it could reside on the recipient’s terminal until their return (Robinson, p. 11).

1971 brought what many consider to be the development of the first true e-mail application, or NETMAIL as it was known at the time. Ray Tomlinson was a computer programmer at Bolt, Beranek, and Newman (BBN, now known as BBN Technologies and now a part of Verizon). Tomlinson worked at the office in his spare time at BBN to combine two existing popular technologies: CYPNET, which was an experimental file transfer protocol that was used for sending files to remote computers on ARPANet, and a common CBMS application known as SNDMSG (Mesch, 2000). Tomlinson placed two PDP-10 computers side-by side; one of which had a whopping 288 kilobytes of memory. Tomlinson continuously attempted to send messages from one computer to the other, debugging his "hack" with each attempt until it finally worked. Ray Tomlinson cannot remember the first e-mail message he sent; he has said that it was probably "qwertyuiop" or "testing". When asked why he had created the first true e-mail application, which Tomlinson called SNDMSG, he replied, "It was just a neat use of the network-a solution looking for problems." (Verub, 2000).

What differentiated NETMAIL from CBMS’s of the past was the fact that

SNDMSG allowed for "asynchronous communication" (Stauffer, p. 9), meaning the transmission of messages did not require both the sender and receiver to be online simultaneously. These messages could be stored on the mainframe in the recipient’s "Inbox" until the recipient retrieved the message. This may be considered the "first true internet protocol" through the fact that NETMAIL used a "staged delivery process" similar to the various protocols used on the Internet, as opposed to the need for "real-time connections" for the relaying of messages (Smith, 270). A more important distinction is the fact that earlier messaging systems only allowed for the sending and receiving of messages between terminals of the same computer, whereas Tomlinson’s creation allowed for communication between terminals of different computers (livinginternet website, 2000).

Interestingly, many of the other core attributes of e-mail that persist today, or at least existed for many years, were included in SNDMSG. These core attributes include:

1) The inclusion of the recipient’s address included in body message,

2) The inclusion of ACSII text only (no binary data allowed),

3) The acceptance of e-mail messages from anywhere,

4) No acknowledgement that the recipient has received their message, unless the

recipient explicitly replies to the original sender (Smith, 270), and

The desktop and mailbox/folder paradigm (such as "Inbox" and "Trash") were implemented by this point in the development of e-mail software (Robinson, p. 12), although it is not clear whether it was Tomlinson who created this, or if this paradigm was already in existence for CBMS.

In these early days of computing, innovations in programming were often shared freely among the relatively small community of computer programmers. So, after the initially secretive Tomlinson was encouraged by his elated co-workers to share his innovation with other programmers, Tomlinson’s new application proliferated quite quickly through the 23-computer-strong ARPANet. Other programmers quickly began using NETMAIL and developing their own electronic mail software (Mesch, 2000). The addition of usernames, passwords, and personalized mailboxes allowed for the retrieval of messages from any terminal the user may log onto, whereas before this the recipient was restricted to their own terminal for NETMAIL communications (Robinson, p. 11-13). Tomlinson quickly combined the two programs into one e-mail program in 1972, as NETMAIL usage quickly increased to encompass 75% of ARPANet file transfer resources (Cornell website, 2000). READMAIL, which was created by Larry Roberts, a former director of ARPA, soon came into co-prominence with Tomlinson’s program until both were supplanted by RD, which allowed for the indexing of messages by date and subject, and then NRD, which allowed for the selective deletion of messages. A series of other e-mail software applications were developed, each adding features (such as internal Help information) and other improvements. A milestone was reached when John Vittal developed MSG, which allowed for new features such as individualized graphical user interface customization and settings, replying with the automatic copying of the original message, and forwarding to any recipient. All of these were surpassed in sophistication in the mid-1970’s by "Hermes", considered by BBN to be a "highly sophisticated" e-mail program that was the first e-mail program developed by hired programmers for-pay (Mesch, 2000).

As is usually the case with new technologies under development by a large number of entities, problems and disagreements arose regarding technological standards. In the case of e-mail, there were three primary issues that arose circa 1977. These three issues were:

1. standards to allow for the sending and receiving of e-mail messages between different e-mail client software;
2. disputes with the government (department of defense) -controlled ARPA regarding the use of ARPANet for interpersonal communications; and
3. the use of the @ ("at") symbol as a delimiter for separating the user’s name from their respective computer’s name on the network (Mesch, 2000).

By 1977, there were many different e-mail programs in use which generated network mail accounting for roughly 50% of all ARPANet use by researchers, scientists, programmers, etc (cs.wisc.edu, 2000). Also, by the late 1970’s, e-mail was recognized for its popularity and market potential, thus spawning commercial e-mail mainframes such as IBM’s PROFS and DISOSS (Robinson, p. 13). The incompatibilities between all of these programs demanded the establishment of standards for the transmission, reception, and displaying of e-mail messages. A series of RFC’s (Request For Comments) were developed, eventually leading to the set of standards and core features that exist to this day essentially unchanged. Primary issues resolved through the implementation of these RFC’s included header formatting, which was a major issue, as well as establishing general network mail formatting standards (Mesch, 2000).

The government disapproved of the use of their network for the use of interpersonal communications. ARPANet initially was never intended for communications other than the transfer of computer files from one computer to another or the use of remote computers. While this issue symbolically pitted the computer scientist community against the government establishment for a while, the government never actively pursued the elimination of e-mail on ARPANet. Regardless of the fact that computer operatives were aware of this governmental disapproval, they continued their use and development of electronic mail during non-working hours.

"Almost all of the work on network mail was done in the underground after regular work hours, as more of a hobby and without pay. This was some of the first hobby work done with computers to improve something." (Mesch, 2000). The development of electronic mail was relatively simplistic compared to the other work that ARPA researchers were conducting. Because of government disapproval, e-mail was never discussed or mentioned in reports or presentations of new technologies. The issue was resolved in 1978 when the mission for the ARPANet was "reworked to include human communication" (Mesch, 2000).

Tomlinson needed to devise a way to separate the mail user’s name from the name of their ARPANet-linked computer. Tomlinson chose the "@" character because it is the only preposition that exists as a single key on the keyboard, and it is a character that is not used in anyone’s name (Verub, 2000). The use of the @ character has always worked beautifully with one major exception: several competing OS’s (operating systems) in the 1970’s had assigned other uses for the "@" key which conflicted with e-mail use. The most notable conflict occurred within the Multics OS, within which the "@" character was used to delete everything on the current line. Tomlinson created his e-mail program on the Tenex OS, which was developed by BBN itself and was often used on PDP-10 computers. One could imagine the frustration users faced when they could not use one of the neatest network-based applications of their time simply because their operating system did not allow for the use of the "@" symbol. Multics refused to change their OS to accommodate this problem, so this issue remained unresolved until the 1980’s, when both Tenex and Multitics were fading from widespread use.

By the late 1970’s, mainframes and terminals were being replaced by minicomputers with integrated e-mail packages, which still required the use of terminals for e-mail. Mainframes soon gave way to networks, which were developed as a solution to the desire to share printers and expensive hard disks among computers. The advent of the use of the Personal Computer (PC) was instrumental in the development of network technologies (Robinson, p. 13). Networks, unlike mainframe-based systems, were a collection of actual computers versus terminals connected to one computer (the mainframe). The availability of relatively inexpensive personal computers made the widespread adoption of network systems possible. The technology developed to where internal e-mail systems were developed, which allowed for avoiding the use of ARPANet for e-mail messages sent between people located within the same LAN. Soon, e-mail communication was possible between ARPANet-based users and other WAN’s (Wide Area Networks) such as BITNET (IBM WAN network systems) and CSNET (universities), through the use of mail relay mechanisms (Smith, 270).

The 1980’s brought vast improvements in user interface designs and the inner workings of e-mail client software that were concurrent with other innovations in computing. One such innovation was the addition of multitasking features, which allowed for the simultaneous use of different programs, thus saving the user from having to close their current program to check their e-mail. Also developed was tighter "integration" with word processors, which increased flexibility in the composition of messages (Robinson, 13-16).

As e-mail increased in popularity, it was often sold bundled with network systems. By the late 1980’s, e-mail became so popular that the electronic mail industry was consolidated through the absorption of many of the companies that provided e-mail services and technologies by larger companies (Robinson, p. 16).

New methods for connecting LAN’s and WAN’s required new standards for translating messages between different network systems, which are in use to this day. These include the X.400 message exchange protocol and the X.500 directory services protocol, which are internationally developed standards, and Novelle’s MHS (Message Handling System) which became the standard by default through widespread adoption.

1989 was an important year in the development of e-mail. For the first time, people other than scientists and network developers "were able to have electronic mail access on the Internet" (Mesch, 2000). MCI and Compuserve each launched commercial e-mail systems. Also, many e-mail programs were split into several programs for efficiency and developmental reasons. These programs included (1) the program for users, which read and write mail, retain addresses, and connect to the mail server; (2) server software which transmits outgoing mail, and (3) server software that receives messages and sends them to the user (Mesch, 2000).

By early 1990, ARPANet ceased to exist, but the Internet had evolved from the former ARPANet and other smaller interconnected networks. The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) was developed as a way to transfer e-mail through the emerging network, from server-to-server. Whereas the X.400 and X.500 protocols allowed for the exchanging of messages between users of different LAN’s and WAN’s, SMTP allows for the direct sending of e-mail between any Internet hosts (servers) that use this protocol (Smith 271).

In 1992, Robinson (p. 17) predicted a number of technological and market trends for electronic mail, all of which have come true in one form or another:

1) Decentralization–Newer E-mail systems are largely on LAN’s, not hosts

2) Consolidation–Fewer LAN E-mail programs have more of the

market

3) Integration–LAN, host, fax, and other messaging forms are joining

4) Infiltration–E-mail functions are appearing in other "mail-enabled" programs

and even in "groupware."

5) Separation–Transport, directory, and interface services are separating

*6) Extension–E-mail will carry multimedia messages everywhere, aided by

portable systems and universal directories

7) Automation–E-mail will carry messages between programs.

The extension of e-mail to the inclusion of rich media and the use of universal (Internet) directories and portable (wireless) systems is of particular importance for the remainder of this paper.

The mid to late 1990’s brought a plethora of new home computer users, most of whom got their first (and second, and third…) e-mail account. Advances in computing power and Internet/network capabilities, advances in the use of rich media in computers, and the increasingly affordable PC brought many new users to the increasingly huge Internet. The World Wide Web set the stage, on the Internet, where individuals and organizations alike could present themselves using their own web sites, thus providing a rich field of information for "web surfers" to explore. Meanwhile, a culture was developing around the Internet, with users engaging in chat rooms and signing up for bulletin boards and mailing lists, and systems of "netiquette" developed to guide the "newbie" (newcomer to the web) in how they were expected to interact with other users of the Internet.

Meanwhile, the use of e-mail grew exponentially, remaining the top use of the Internet over browsing for pages on the World Wide Web. As could be expected, the features of e-mail software were expanded greatly. The graphical user interface used in e-mail software became more or less standard, using separate folders such as the Inbox for storing received messages, an Outbox for storing sent or queued messages, and the Trash for deleted messages awaiting permanent deletion. The user may create their own folders in addition to these, customize their interface, add filters to send or delete messages from certain senders, and change other settings such as allowing for the automatic checking of messages in a preset interval, such as once every five minutes.

While traditional e-mail services were limited to LAN-based e-mail systems, the Internet brought a number of free web-based e-mail services; the primary cost to the user is the placement of "banner ads" (graphical advertisements) on the website itself which the user is obliged to either click or ignore. The proliferation of e-mail itself has brought other costs such as "spam" and viruses spread through e-mail.

Spam may be defined as the following:

Put simply, spam is unsolicited e-mail. However, many receive e-mail messages that at first seem like spam but are in fact solicited; the receiver has "opted-in" to receive e-mail messages by going to the website from which the e-mail originated, and explicitly asking for more information. While the U.S. government has been slow to pass laws which protect the e-mail user from spam or specify remedial actions, those who have persisted in sending spam have been punished by massive influxes of angry e-mails ("clogging") and other, more mischievous actions on the part of angry netizens (Sterne, p. 30-31). Meanwhile, while the government considers passing laws that allow for spamming if the receiver has the option to "opt-out", many savvy collectors of information use the "unsubscription" option in their spam to verify the e-mail addresses of the recipients when they "unsubscribe", so they may resell their new verified e-mail lists at higher prices (Sterne, p. 24). Other problems include spam which asks newbies to submit personal information, which allows for the use of their identity for criminal means.

Viruses and other security problems have also been a problem for both e-mail users and servers. A former professor of mine received an e-mail based virus which, when the message is opened, automatically sent itself to every address in his address book. Luckily, he immediately sent a message to everyone, using the subject line to warn everyone against opening the infected message.

Firewalls and high-security server software packages have eliminated many of the security holes inherent in e-mail servers (Sterne, 273-4). The popular Unix-based e-mail software (Sendmail) has proven to be particularly susceptible because of fundamental security flaws. Also, the fact that Unix is an open-source operating system means that as bugs and security problems arise, this information is shared online, whereas most commercial makers of software keep problems to themselves until they can be fixed. Meanwhile, the use of Java applets within e-mail has also raised security concerns, since Java may be used to create destructive programs (Sterne, 274).

Around 1997, the addition of HTML (Hypertext Mark-up Language) and the MIME protocol (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) opened a whole new field for what could be sent via e-mail. MIME handles the encoding and decoding of non-text messages, thus allowing for the attachment of other media such as "Postscript, voice, binary, video, and other media" (Robinson, p. 90) such as graphics. MIME does this by encoding attachments into plain text, and then decoding them back to their original state (Stauffer, p. 55). Currently, MIME allows for the attachment of virtually any type of computer file, the limits being the file size that e-mail service providers will allow the sender and receiver to send and receive through the server. This new feature of e-mail technology has made the convenient the passing of small files between individuals.

The inclusion of HTML allows for the sending of complete web pages through e-mail. This is exciting in that any content that may be displayed on a regular web page may be included in the e-mail, not as an attachment, but displayed directly within the e-mail message. This includes text, hypertext, graphics, sound (MIDI, streaming audio), streaming video (using Java applets), embedded JavaScript programs, Java applets, and ActiveX controls (Smith, 1999). It is the assumption of the author that most content that requires the use of web browser plug-ins such as Macromedia Shockwave-Flash would not be viewable or heard within e-mail software. However, there is currently a patent pending for techniques which will allow for embedding Flash content within e-mail messages, although the company who devised this technology may be defunct; their website is no longer available on the web (see the last entry in the bibliography). Nevertheless, there are a number of terms used to describe content rich e-mail, such as "A/V E-mail" and "Multimedia E-Mail". For the purposes of this paper, the term "Enhanced E-mail" shall be used.

HTML is not yet used by a majority of e-mail users because many still rely upon older software that does not support HTML. However, there is a "consumer swing" towards the use of HTML-enabled e-mail software. This is exciting for marketers who see the marketing potential of enhanced e-mail. As visitors to a company’s web site "opt in", or register to receive future advertising and promotions via e-mail, a database is being built to keep track of the opted-in subscribers. The information collected may include the consumer’s name, e-mail address, and product preferences and hobbies. This allows for direct marketing to those consumers in a very cost-effective way through e-mail. Enhanced e-mail is more likely to grab the attention of the recipient (provided they actually open the message before deleting it), particularly when it is used effectively in an interactive and animated way to present the information that the recipient craves (Sterne, 126-135).

Unfortunately for marketers, there are still a number of e-mail programs in the marketplace that are widely in use, and the task of creating content that will be accurately displayed on all of these, or even most of these, seems quite daunting (Sterne, 131). The task of creating web pages that look correct on just the two or three main web browsers in use today is difficult enough. Perhaps as standards emerge, new versions of popular e-mail software will display e-mailed HTML in a more standardized fashion than do the existing web browsers. Or, as Forrester Research predicts for next year (2001), web browsers and e-mail software will be fully integrated within each other, providing a seamless display of Internet-based content that will display enhanced e-mail correctly. Meanwhile, e-mail advertisements with attachments is an option that is occasionally chosen to draw customers (Sterne, p.135).

Something that has technologically savvy privacy buffs worried, and e-marketers salivating, is the use of cookies within enhanced e-mail. The server may keep track of when many banner ads are downloaded, thus collecting data as to how effective the e-mail campaign is in terms of viewers (Sterne, p.130). Also, many banner ads contain cookies, which store information such as the user’s e-mail address on the user’s machine. That information can then be retrieved as the user browses the web, allowing the company that produced the banner ad to track the browsing habits of the user and learn about their interests. This is alarming for those who know about this and tend to turn their cookies off in their browser out of concerns for privacy, because there is no way to disable the storage and sending of cookies within e-mail client software. Currently, we simply have no choice (Smith, 1999).

A convergence of technologies is underway, and e-mail is no exception. The ability to convert text to speech has been around for some time, but users may now have their e-mail converted to speech and sent to their voicemail. Wireless cellular technologies allow for the sending of e-mail to portable devices such as pagers, PDA’s (Personal Data Assistants), and PCS (Personal Communications Services). Pocketmail is a text-only e-mail service that uses a handheld device that is held to a telephone receiver to download and upload messages, as well as "cordless and corded home phones, digital PBX office phones, cellular and public payphones." (www.pocketmail.com). Other devices, such as Flashpoint’s Digita digital camera, houses a feature which allows the user to wirelessly e-mail digital photos directly from the camera (http://www.dccdesigner.com, see bibliography).

Promotional uses of enhanced e-mail are underway, particularly for advertising music artists. Utilizing a method of advertising known as "viral marketing", e-mail messages with embedded audio tracks, video, photographs of the artists, and visual interactivity, these promotional e-mails involve the targeted audience more effectively than traditional advertising. The popular option to forward these "e-ads" to friends minimizes advertising costs while getting more people involved and allowing for the collection of information as to who is interested in this music (Meredith & Wells, 2000).

We can expect to see continuing integration of e-mail with other technologies, such as smart devices (Gibbs, 2000) and personal video editing software (for e-mailing streamed video clips of home video). Enhanced e-mail should gain momentum as a popular medium for sending and receiving personal media, as well as promotional materials. We can expect to continue to see the media contained within enhanced e-mail to improve and incorporate new technologies, while the term "Enhanced E-mail" will fade, and content-rich e-mail will remain "e-mail". New security hazards will present themselves, as will new security solutions, including the option to disable of cookies. Web-based e-mail services will continue to absorb market-share in the e-mail industry as more people gravitate towards the web, while LAN-based systems and PC-based e-mail software will grow in sophistication. Speech-to-text (voicemail-to-email) messaging will also become well used by the populace in the shorter term, and the widening bandwidth will allow for the direct sending of full-screen high-quality news "broadcasts" to the individual’s PC.

In the years to follow, we can expect near-universal access to e-mail on the level of the telephone at least in the United States. It will be used for more than just the sending and receiving of simple text, and it will be available as a feature incorporated within many new and existing devices.

FlashPoint Announces Wireless Photo E-Mail from Digita-Enabled Cameras. (2000, April 4). Retrieved December 2, 2000, from the World Wide Web: http://www.dccdesigner.com/Htm/Articles_0400/FlashPoint_DigitaPost.htm.

Gibbs, W.W. (2000 November). "As We May Live: Computer scientists build a dream house to test their vision of the future". Scientific American, 283, pp.36.

How Email Was Invented. (n.d.). Retrieved December 2, 2000, from the World Wide Web: http://www.livinginternet.com/e/ei.htm.

Learn2.com Launches New Product Line. (2000, September 8). Retrieved December 2, 2000, from the World Wide Web: http://www.siggraphnews.com/html/2000/September/newsroom/Learn2.htm.

Meredith, R., and Wells, M. (2000 October 10). "You’ve Got Ad-Mail." Forbes, 166, pp.161.

Mesch, J. ( n.d.). You've Got Mail, the Surprise Phenomenon of the Counter-Culture. Retrieved December 2, 2000, from the World Wide Web: http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~mesch/email.html.

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Smith, R.E. (1997). Internet Cryptography. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc.

Smith, R. M.( 1999, November 30). The Cookie Leak Security Hole in HTML Email messages. Retrieved December 2, 2000, from the World Wide Web: http://users.rcn.com/rms2000/privacy/cookleak.htm

Stauffer, T. (1997). Using Netscape Messenger E-mail. Indianapolis: Que Corp.

Sterne, J., & Priore, A. (2000). Email Marketing: Using Email to Reach Your Target Audience and Build Customer Relationships. New York: Whiley Computer Publishing.

The History of E-mail. (n.d.). Retrieved December 2, 2000, from the World Wide Web: http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/ast13/email/history.html.

togglethis Creates Interactive Email Advertisement for BMW. (2000, February 7). Retrieved December 2, 2000, from the World Wide Web: http://www.dccdesigner.com/Htm/Articles/togglethis_BMW.htm.

Verub, B.L. (n.d.). History of E-mail: emailm@n. Retrieved December 2, 2000, from the World Wide Web: http://www.brianvereb.com/History%20of%20E-Mail.htm.

A page which no longer exists on the web, except in cached form on the search engine Google’s website, this is an article about a patent pending regarding embedding Flash content within e-mail. Retrieved December 2, 2000, from the World Wide Web: http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.tmxinteractive.com/news/patent.html+Flash+within+e-mail&hl=en.