Email—Computers That Send, Store and Receive Messages
Email is a major factor in consumers' motivation to use the Internet. Often consumers purchase computers so that they can send email to children, grandchildren and distant relatives. According to the February 23, 2001 issue of Messaging Online's Messaging Today, the number of electronic mailboxes worldwide grew 67% to 891.1 million from 1999 to 2000. The article estimated that 58% of the population in the United States uses email (three quarters of workers and 45% of non-workers). Also, for the first time more mailboxes, 51%, existed outside of the United States than inside. Messaging Today attributed this to the growth of wireless mailboxes in Japan. Wireless email accounted for 31.8 million of the 891.1 million mailboxes.
Electronic mail is the computer-based storage and forwarding of text-based messages. Ray Tomlinson, an engineer at BBN in Cambridge, Massachusetts, invented electronic mail in 1972. BBN, then Bolt Beranek and Newman, had built the first Internet network, ARPANET, and users of ARPANET needed a way to communicate with each other. Standard electronic mail used on the Internet is based on Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), which is part of the suite of protocols called TCP/IP.
SMTP specifies addressing conventions. For example, the @ sign differentiates between the user's name and his computer. SMTP also specifies how to address mail to multiple locations, ways to copy other people and the fact that ASCII code is used.
Email characters are sent in ASCII, the American Standard Code for Information Interchange code. ASCII code, which translates computer bits into characters, has a limited number of characters. It initially only supported all of the upper- and lowercase letters of the alphabet, numbers and symbols such as *, $, underlining and %. ASCII, however, does not include formatting options such as italics, bolding and columns. If a word processing file is copied and pasted into an email message, it loses its formatting.
Newer email programs bundled with browsers now support Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) formatting. HTML commands enable special formatting such as embedded graphics, colors and unusual fonts to be included in messages. Netscape, Eudora and Internet Explorer email can read HTML commands when they are embedded in email messages. The newest version of AOL browsers, 6.0, also can read the HTML but AOL 5.0 cannot. The advent of HTML-capable email programs has increased the potential of email as a marketing tool.
Email initially was used as a business tool within corporations. Businesses now connect their email servers to the Internet. They use email to check the status of projects, follow up on proposals and check on orders. Email is faster and less intrusive than a telephone call. A telephone call is an interruption, whereas email is stored and can be reviewed when convenient. Users can pick up their email at scheduled times during the day. Unlike voice mail, email provides a hard copy record of communication. As companies where email messages are used against them in trials know, this can be a mixed blessing. Both Chevron and Microsoft have been hurt in trials where email messages were used in evidence against them.
Email has significantly changed the nature of business communications. The following quote from an email message by Toni Profetto, Administration Manager, New Balance Athletic Shoe Company, typifies this change:
I'll talk to you (via e-mail since no one talks anymore) tomorrow.
Email Attachments—To Aid Collaborative Projects
Firms use email services to exchange more than ASCII text messages. Companies exchange spreadsheets, graphics, PowerPoint and word processing documents with consultants, remote employees and business partners. Sending attachments has become the de facto way people exchange documents. One standard for sending attachments is multipurpose Internet mail extensions (MIME). The MIME standard can be used for voice, video and graphics programs. MIME enables users to send video, foreign language and audio file attachments.
The MIME standard includes a way to attach bits at the beginning and end of the attachment. These bits tell the receiving computer what type of file is attached and when the attachment ends. For example, the bits may tell the computer, “This is a Microsoft Word for Windows file.” The receiving computer then opens the document as a Word file. MIME does not entirely solve the attachment problem. The sending and receiving computers need compatible software platforms and programs for reading attachments. Some early releases of spreadsheet and word processing programs cannot open newer versions of these programs.
Two concerns with attachments are viruses and Internet access speeds. Residential users with dialup connections experience long delays when they receive large multimedia attachments. Moreover, some of these attachments contain viruses. Viruses are software programs written to damage computer files. Straight-text email messages cannot “pollute” PCs with viruses. However, a virus included in attachments can harm files when the attachment is opened from within programs. Viruses can wipe out the entire content of a PC's hard drive. As new viruses are discovered, virus protection software is updated and if installed at user sites, can warn people that they have received an attachment with a virus. Some virus protection software blocks the transmission of files containing known viruses.
HTML Email as a Marketing Tool
Email is a fast, inexpensive and effective way to reach customers. According to Cambridge Massachusetts market research firm Forrester Research, it costs $1 to mail a catalog and only 5¢ to send a marketing email message. According to Forrester, about 10% of people respond to marketing email messages and about a quarter of these people make a purchase. These statistics were reported in the article, “You Want Repeat Customers? Try E-Mail,” published in The New York Times Online, 18 April 2001, by Bernard Stampler. Retailers such as Nordstrom, Lands End, Amazon.com and others regularly send promotional email messages. Palm Computing uses email to notify customers of software upgrades, add-ons and bugs in their operating system. Specialized email providers such as Responsys.com, USA.NET, Inc. and FloNetwork have servers from which they email millions of promotional messages for clients.
A large reason for email's impact is the fact that much of it is sent with Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) commands capable of adding special formatting to email. The email messages have commands embedded in the text files for specialized fonts, Web links, color and placement of images. Thus email contains links to retailers' sites, JPEG pictures, specialized fonts and color backgrounds. Some contain synthesized voice messages that speak their message when recipients click on them. Email messages with images for catalog items and corporate logos contain large amounts of data. When they're sent to residential consumers with dialup Internet connections they download slowly.
Some companies promote their services and stay in touch with contacts through specialized newsletters they send via email. Application service providers (ASPs) such as iMakeNews furnish newsletter templates that customers fill in via the Internet. iMakeNews stores and sends the first page of the newsletters for its clients as email messages. Recipients that wish to read the rest of the newsletter click on a link to iMakeNews' server located at a hosting company. Because early versions of AOL can't read the HTML formatting, iMakeNews is developing software that knows if a recipient has the latest version of AOL's email, so that the newsletter can be formatted accordingly. The use of email for mass mailing is lowering postal revenues.
Instant Messaging—Real-Time Text Chats
Instant messaging (IM) is the ability to exchange messages electronically in near real-time with other people also signed on to the Internet. With instant messaging, a window pops up on people's computers, letting them know who in their chat group is online. AOL calls people in the same chat group “buddies.” AOL has 80% of the instant messaging market. Instant Messenger software, AOL's product that works independently of its ISP service, has 61 million registered users. Its ISP-based product (ICQ, short for “I seek you”), has 87 million users. AOL acquired ICQ in June 1998 when it purchased rival Israeli instant messaging provider Mirabilis Ltd., the developer of ICQ. AOL's two instant messaging systems are incompatible with each other. The next largest providers of instant messaging software are MSN with its Messenger service, which has 18 million registered users, and Yahoo! Messenger with 10.6 million users.
The large number of people using instant messaging has attracted advertisers. An analyst with investment bank ING Barings LLC estimated that by September 2000, AOL had a backlog of about $100 million in ads for its ICQ instant messaging service. AOL charges advertisers $5 per thousand of times an ad is displayed to users. This information was published in the article, “Pop-Up for Profit for AOL,” published in Washington.com, 9 January 2001, by Alec Klein. Because teenagers are the largest users of public instant messaging, many of these ads are aimed at young people.
Chat rooms, a feature of instant messaging, often are organized around common interests such as travel and music. People come into and out of the chat room using a name (handle) they select. Users have a split screen, an area for viewing messages and one for typing messages. Chat isn't real-time because participants have an opportunity to type and edit messages before they send them. It's not real-time also in the sense that people see each character as it is typed.
Internet Relay Chat—The Basis for Instant Messaging
Instant messaging based on Internet relay chat (IRC) protocol has been available since the 1980s. Jarkko Oikarinen of Finland designed Internet relay chat in 1988. Internet relay chat (IRC) protocol is based on a client-server model with “channels” defined in the IRC protocol. A channel is the path defined to carry messages to chat rooms or “buddy” lists where everyone receives the same message. The IRC protocol defines how a group of clients (end-user computers) all receive the same message from the server to which they're all connected. Chat programs relay a message from single users to a predefined group. This is feasible because IRC is based on TCP/IP, which can deliver packets containing the same message to many computers. Each client that is part of the IRC group of networks downloads special client Internet relay chat software.
Prior to the commercialization of chat by AOL and Yahoo!, chat networks such as EFNet, DALNet and the Undernet were used by thousands of people that logged on through their Internet service provider. Users of IRC typed computer commands such as /join#Newbies to join the Newbies chat group. Portal operators such as Excite offered chat as did individual operators. Many of the personal groups were sexual in nature. In the mid-1990s, organizations developed proprietary chat software that was easier to use but did not initially interoperate with each other. Currently, except for AOL, many providers have made their services compatible with each other.
Instant Messaging Interoperability and Future Features
When they approved the AOL Time Warner merger, regulators required that AOL make its instant messaging services compatible with competitors when AOL offers advanced (broadband) services such as videoconferencing in conjunction with instant messaging. With this feature users watching a video, can chat with others also watching the same video. To preserve its lead in instant messaging, AOL has blocked interoperability. In the summer of 1999, MSN and Yahoo! made their messenger services compatible with AOL's service. However, AOL blocked the compatibility by slightly changing its software. To date, AOL has no plans for broadband instant messaging services.
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has sponsored a working group, Instant Messaging and Presence Protocol (IMPP), to define protocols for interoperable instant messaging and end-user awareness notification. End-user awareness notification lets users know when others in their “channel” are online. All providers of instant messaging (even AOL) have stated that they will support compatibility between products but AOL has stated it will take a long time to work out security and compatibility issues.
Microsoft, who has been gaining IM market share, is embedding Windows Messenger, its instant messaging in its new Windows XP operating system. Prior releases of Windows software included AOL software. Now that AOL and Microsoft compete in instant messaging and as Internet service providers, Microsoft has not yet reached an agreement to include AOL software in its new operating system. It's not known if AOL will continue to use Microsoft's Internet Explorer as the browser that it supplies its customers.
In the future, instant messaging (IM) may be used for revenue-generating applications such as virtual gaming, telephone service and chats on wireless phones. Windows Messenger will support real-time audio, application sharing and videoconferencing. With real-time voice over Internet (VoIP) improvements, instant messaging has the potential to become a vehicle for placing calls over the Internet. For example, AOL's Instant Messenger turns the Buddy List into a speed-dial directory, which could be used to place calls over the Internet. Tom Laemmel, product manager for Microsoft Windows, was quoted in the article, “Microsoft Plans to Add Instant-Messaging to Windows XP as Talks with AOL Falter,” published in The Wall Street Journal WSJ.com, 5 June 2001, by Rebecca Buckman and Julia Angwin. He characterized Windows Messenger as a:
…unified client for doing audio, video conferencing, application sharing… The important thing, really, is it's not just an instant-messaging client, it's a real-time communications client.
Commercial Applications for Chat—Training and Presentations
Online chat software is often integrated into online collaboration, document-sharing tools for distance learning, training and sales presentations. For example, in online sales presentations the moderator uses PowerPoint to illustrate products or services. At some point in the presentation, the moderator signals that users can submit comments or questions. Users' comments and moderator responses appear in the bottom portion of the computer screen and the PowerPoint demonstration is in the top. (See Chapter 5 for document sharing.) Chat technology also is used for one-to-one customer service and technical support for e-commerce applications.
In addition, companies such as Lotus, Microsoft and Novell include instant messaging in software they sell enterprises. Enterprises that use private instant messaging install servers with the software. The server links to a Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)–compatible or Lotus Notes list of email addresses. LDAP is a protocol that defines a standard layout for directories and a standard method of accessing them.