Email the Killer Internet Application

Posted : 11 Oct 2002

I have been on the Internet since around 95 (which is early, but not particularly pioneering) and I was just going through how much email I have sent and received. I keep my email organised by years and rarely throw anything out so it was easy to compile these results. Some things get filed off in separate folders but the basic data is a pretty good indication of how much email is going around these days. I always delete junk mail and so this does not appear in the figures below. Junk stuff has doubled or trebled in recent years, most notably this year.

95 - 24 in, 74 out (3 months out of 12)
96 - 564 in, 752 out
97 - 918 in, 639 out
98 - 821 in, 470 out
99 - 945 in, 396 out
00 - 1410 in, 702 out
01 - 1814 in, 900 out
02 - 2470 in, 1917 out (up to19/11/02))

Just interesting to see the rise of email and to see hot truly dominating and pervasive it has become. This year has been especially ground breaking. Ground breaking in terms of spam also, which has for many people reached truly epic proportions.

How would we do without our trusty email account, or the equally ubiquitous mobile phone?
Do you have a backup ISP account and email address for when your primary account goes down. Worth considering...