Email is 34 years old. And on the Official Google blog, Gmail engineer Paul Buchheit muses on the technology that has revolutionized how we use our email:


Storage was only the most obvious difference, and our other improvements were just as important. Gmail included a quick and accurate search. It introduced powerful new concepts to organize email, such as the conversation view (so now I can finally see all those replies at once). It provided a fast and dynamic interface from web browsers everywhere, popularizing the techniques that have since become known as AJAX.


In this day and age, we tend to take for granted how email has changed our lives.  It was not so long ago when people still communicated via traditional mail routes. The facsimile and telephone were still the rage.  Now, you can send a message to someone across the globe and that person will receive your communication in a few minutes.


If people from the early 1900s see how technology has evolved over the span of less than a century, they’d think we were gods of some sort, who could reach out to those across continents with the stroke of a keyboard.


Of course, we now also have instant messaging and SMS–yet even more immediate forms of communication, whether local or global.  But email is still the gold standard.  There had been crude attempts to integrate these with email–someday we will get there, just like how Gmail had revolitionized the email interface.


Be mobile. Be free. Read netbook news and reviews.

Tags: | Viewed 294 times

Related Posts