More than the Web

When people think of the Internet, they tend to think of the World Wide Web. In part, this may be explained by the fact that the media’s coverage of the Internet tends to center on the web sites. Te fact remains, however, that the email, no the Web, is the most widly used internet application. The most people who log on to the net do so either to send or to receive email messages. In fact, it is possible to do e-business without using the web at all. Emails can be used to improve communications both within and outside your business.

The main advantage of email include cost, speed and convenience:

Cost: You can send email messages across the globe at minimal cost.

Speed: Messages can be sent and received within a few seconds, which is probably why email advocates refer to the postal service as ‘snail mail’.

Convenience: Email allows you to send as many messages to as many people as you want to, when and where it is convenient. You can also choose to receive and respond to messages as and when you want to.

Despite its obvious advantages, many business views email as a mixed blessing. Because of its convenience, many companies suffer from email overload, with mailboxes overburdened with messages sent to different people and department simultaneously, as well as annoying spam (junk emails ) messages. The other criticism often made of email is that is all too easy for email messages to get into the wrong hands. By empowering everyone with an organization with the ability to contact anyone else (either inside or out side the company) from a business email address, it has the potential to damage a company’s reputation.

While there may be some truth to this criticism, the advantages of email clearly outweigh the disadvantages. Its cheap, convenient and can be powerfully effective. Furthermore, it does not replace or jeopardize other communication tools such as the phone or fax. As Guy Fieldign, a communication specialist at Oxford University, point out, ‘Email is not destructive or other forms of communication. In fact, it probably has the opposite effect. It has more of an impact on how the other channels are used, not on whether they are used’.

This means that email increases the value of other communications, as well as being an effective means of communication itself.