Electronic Mail began with informal methods of using shared files to pass messages. Most developers of early mainframes and minicomputers developed similar, but generally incompatible, electronic mail applications. Over time, a complex web of gateways and routing systems linked many of them. In 1971, the first Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) network mail was sent, introducing the now-familiar address syntax with the @–symbol designating the user’s system address. Over a series of RFCs ("Request-for-Comments" standards documents) conventions were refined for sending mail messages over FTP (the File Transfer Protocol).
Proprietary electronic mail systems began to emerge in the 1970s and early 1980s. IBM developed a primitive in-house solution for office automation over the period 1970–1972, and then in 1974 replaced it with OFS (Office System) which provided electronic mail transfer between individuals. CompuServe began offering electronic mail designed for intraoffice memos in 1978. The development team for the Xerox Star, as well as work at Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) and Hewlett-Packard continued to push 'e-mail' forward. The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) protocol was implemented on the ARPANET in 1983.
Finally a combination of factors made the current Internet suite of SMTP, POP3, and IMAP email protocols the standard. During the 1980s and 1990s, use of email became common in government, including miltary/defense, at universities, and in business. Starting with the advent of webmail clients in the mid-1990s, use of email extended to the rest of the public.
Here's a list of Historically Significant Email Domains.
aol.com
AOL (America Online) and Delphi joined their proprietary e-mail services to the Internet in 1993. In 1997, AOL Mail rose to be the world’s biggest e-mail provider, with millions of users. That same year, AOL released NetMail, which was another version of its e-mail service that only worked on Internet Explorer at first. This service was later called AOL Mail on the Web in 1999. AOL became worried about its competitors: MSN Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, and Gmail, so it launched AIM Mail, which gave users 2 GB of mail storage and was integrated with AOL Instant Messager (AIM). From the year 2012 to 2021, the number of paying users dropped dramatically, but the service does still exist.
AOL was bought by Verizon in 2015 and got a massive upgrade in terms of looks and infrastructure. Now, users can send text and instant messages from specific windows in their email inbox and they have spam filters and virus protection. Additionally, AOL gives their users unlimited storage and allows them to import email contacts from a pre-existing CSV, TXT, or LDIF file.
comcast.net, now xfinity.com
Comcast and Xfinity and their connection confuse some people, but they are essentially the same thing. Comcast is the parent company of Xfinity. Xfinity is Comcast’s brand for TV, internet, and home phone services. As part of those home phone services, Comcast decided to take their e-mail service and change the domain from comcast.net to xfinity.com and move users over so their phone service had more connection with their e-mail.
hotmail.com, now outlook.live.com
It's hard to overstate how important the hotmail.com to outlook.live.com transition was for the e-mail space. Hotmail [N1] became MSN Hotmail, then changed to Windows Live Hotmail, and then finally, Microsoft evolved it to outlook.live.com. Hotmail was founded in 1996 by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith. After seeing its success, Microsoft acquired it for around $400 million and then relaunched it, hence the change to MSN Hotmail.
ymail.com, now mail.yahoo.com
Most people have probably heard of Yahoo Mail. It used to be extremely popular and still has many users to this day. It originally had the domain ymail.com, and now goes by mail.yahoo.com. It is a webmail service that is perfect for people who send a lot of attachments through e-mail because it provides its users with 1 TB of free storage. Yahoo! Mail is extremely customizable with fun background themes and its search engine is really good for finding old e-mails or attachments.
msn.com
MSN, or Microsoft Network, was launched in 1998 as an internet service and web portal. It provided people with email, messaging, news, weather, and other such information. MSN Messenger was its very popular instant messaging platform, but it also had an email service with the domain of msn.com and was under MSN Hotmail. As mentioned above, this later evolved into Outlook.com. Most of the services that used to be popular on MSN have been discontinued and used in other Microsoft services.
mac.com, now apple.com
Apple continues to dominate the e-mail service space quietly. It used to have several old domains that it has been stealthily trying to erase from history. One such domain was the mac.com address. These date back to iTools and the iBook SE, and Apple is trying to transition users away from them. The mac.com e-mail address is the oldest. Users who still have this e-mail address had a working e-mail with Apple on July 9, 2008, and kept their MobileMe account active. If they moved to iCloud before August 1, 2012, they are able to use all three old Apple domains, which are iCloud.com, me.com, and mac.com in order of their age. These are now being phased out of fashion by Apple.
gmail.com
Gmail is definitely one of the most recognizable e-mail domains today. It falls under the category of webmail, and it is extremely versatile. Gmail has the second-highest market share of all e-mail providers. It’s a very simple, easy-to-use inbox tool for those who have a Google account, which is obviously free. It is built into Google Workspace, so that there are a bunch of free applications users can use with their e-mail. One of the most helpful of these is Google Calendar, which can be used to set meetings and reminders. Gmail provides its users with a free 15 GB of e-mail storage, which is plenty for most people. It also has some pretty advanced filters that can be used to organize e-mails neatly as soon as they arrive in an inbox. Some of the best and most unique features that Gmail has are its native file collaboration and its ability to unsend e-mails.
live.com, now outlook.live.com
Outlook.com was originally called Hotmail, and it was founded in 1996. Hotmail came as part of the Microsoft 365 product line and described itself as a complete webmail provider with mail, contacts, calendaring, and task organization services. After its time as Hotmail, it became MSN Hotmail and then Windows Live Hotmail. Eventually, Microsoft phased out the live.com domain and relaunched it as outlook.live.com.
Currently, Outlook is best known for its ability to integrate multiple apps smoothly. For anyone who uses many platforms, this is the best e-mail client because it can connect to Skype, Facebook, PowerPoint, Paypal, Trello, and more. It offers a fairly standard 15 GB of free e-mail storage, which is plenty for the average user. It also gives users the option to use aliases that allow them to send e-mails more anonymously and protect them from spam.
att.net, now start.att.net
Most people are familiar with AT&T. They are a huge company that provides telecommunications, media, and technology services. They have many systems to help customers access wireless communication, data, broadband, internet services, local and long-distance telephone services, and more. They also have an e-mail service for their customers to use. Even those who are not on an AT&T plan can use one of their e-mail accounts. They originally used the domain att.net but then switched to start.at.net. Now, AT&T has changed again and offers users the choice between the domains @currently.com and @att.net.
me.com, now apple.com
As stated before, the me.com domain came after the mac.com domain and it was very short-lived. If users made an iCloud account prior to September 19, 2012, or moved to iCloud with an active MobileMe account before August 1, 2012, they have a me.com and an icloud.com e-mail address. They do not have a mac.com e-mail address. Apple is one of the biggest e-mail providers in the space because of its Apple ecosystem of phones, laptops, desktops, and other premier technology.
Notes
- NOTE 1
In its early days, the creators of Hotmail would sometimes reference the service as HoTMaiL, to give homage to its origins. This was because the user interface was made with HTML (Hypertext Markup Language).
