The Evolution of Web Based Email

In the early to mid 1990s when the Internet was still young and not yet in many homes, most people contently relied on the email addresses supplied by their Internet Service Providers (affectionately known as ISP email.)  This arrangement usually worked well, despite the quirks involved with proprietary software the ISP’s proffered to their customers.

In the days when CompuServe and AOL were the big contenders for Internet subscriptions, a few million people logged on daily to the familiar “You’ve Got Mail!” greeting.  Surfers tended to stick close to the proverbial shore of familiarity, in fact, and were satisfied to limit their experience of the World Wide Web to whatever cul-de-sacs their ISP’s provided, whether in terms of email functionality or Web content.

Email, particularly, was confined to the software environments established by the ISP’s or to desktop mail clients – until 1994, when the first mail applications were written to liberate email, making it available from any Web browser, at any location in the world with an Internet connection.

As this new, web based email gained popularity another important evolution was taking place in the web browser market. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, the new kid on the block, was gaining on Netscape Navigator for dominance.  People now began to realize there were choices not only for email, but also for how they could connect to the World Wide Web, and what content they could find outside the narrow crawlspaces of ISP browsing environments.  This marked the beginnings of an expanding universe of sorts, resulting in a gradual yet significant exodus of users from the digital suburbs to the open frontier.

The first web based email experience most people will remember is Hotmail.  Microsoft bought out this webmail company, and launched it under the same name on July 4, 1996.  People joined by the thousands, creating new email accounts and basking in the glory of being able to log on from anywhere with an Internet connection.  No longer were users bound to their own PCs with their wired dial-up Internet connections and proprietary software.

Now, people could check their email from a browser window – either in Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer – and the reception was largely a warm one, despite early bugginess and instability of the first truly large-scale webmail client to go mainstream.

Hot on the heels of Hotmail came Yahoo! Mail, a little over one year later.  Yahoo! was the most popular Web portal and search engine at the time, and so its new webmail service was instantly a big hit.

Yahoo! Mail now boasts the most registered users among all Web email providers.  It was the first service of its kind to offer unlimited email storage, and has been diligent in making consistent, regular updates to its user interface and feature set over the years.

Hotmail by comparison, has experienced a decline in “real” users, with many people reporting they use a number of Hotmail accounts “for spam” but do not rely on it for anything serious.  Google’s Gmail is quickly overtaking both webmail providers in terms of numbers of users and quality of use – especially in the mobile market, where Google’s products tend to play nicely with gadgets of all kinds, whether Android, iOS, or Blackberry powered.

Final Thought

If you’re wondering what the best Web based email provider is right now, you’re going to have to dig in and do some research – but a quick search on Wikipedia for “comparison of webmail providers” will be a good starting point.  There, you can find a listing of all current webmail services, and all their features in grid form for easy viewing.

Tagged as: email evolution, email evolves, email history, email now, Hotmail, web based email, webmail, Yahoo! Mail

From the desk of mmclaurin

M. McLaurin enjoys blogging about Internet history, the World Wide Web, and technology. She currently writes for Direct TV.

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