Even with the multimedia excitement of the Web, Electronic Mail (email) is the most frequently used application of the Internet. Many people who have access to the Internet at school, home, and work, use the Internet for no other purpose than to send and receive email.

According to International Data Corporation (IDC), on an average day in the year 2000, 5.1 billion emails are sent in the US and 8.2 billion worldwide. By 2005, 11.5 billion emails will be sent each day on average in the US and 26.1 billion worldwide. (This includes emails sent by individuals for business and personal purposes, but not mass emails sent to large lists.)

It's all very easy. You create the message, log onto the Internet, and send it. The message first goes to your Internet Service Provider's mail server, which in turn sends it to the recipient's mail server. On the way your message may go through several servers, each reading the domain name in order to route it to the appropriate server.

The message then remains in the recipient's mail server until he requests it by "checking his mail."

Each email address you send is made up of certain components that help route it to the proper recipient:

The benefits of email are obvious...mostly it's quick. Also, many people feel that the rules for regular mail don't apply to email*, making it less formal, which in turn makes email easier to compose and send.

It's not just friends and coworkers that are receiving email. Wherever you look, the Web is providing email addresses. This has made communication between strangers easier than ever. When you visit a Web site, click on the Web masters email address to let them know what you think. You can read an interesting article online and immediately send the author an email.

There are several search engines that will assist you in finding email addresses.