From DaveWiki
Email (Electronic mail) is one of the oldest technologies on the internet, having been developed on ARPANET, the precursor of the internet. Its use first emerged in 1965 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
It allows messages to be sent online from one user to another, via their email addresses.
An email address usually takes the form of the user's username, followed by an @ symbol, and then the domain of the server where the user's mail is stored. For example, the general purpose email address for this website is hello@onlineinnovation.org.uk where hello is the username and onlineinnovation.org.uk is the domain.
A lot of people these days have a work email address, and many have a personal one too. Most internet sevice providers offer email addresses as a part of their package, or you can get a free one using a service such as Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo! Mail.
People often access their emails using a client application like Outlook or Thunderbird. Others prefer a software as a service approach, using a web based solution like those offered by Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo! Mail.
