E-mail, Chat, Video Conferencing

E-mail

Short for electronic mail, the transmission of messages over communications networks. The messages can be notes entered from the keyboard or electronic files stored on disk. Most mainframes, minicomputers, and computer networks have an e-mail system. Some electronic-mail systems are confined to a single computer system or network, but others have gateways to other computer systems, enabling users to send electronic mail anywhere in the world. Companies that are fully computerized make extensive use of e-mail because it is fast, flexible, and reliable.

Most e-mail systems include a rudimentary text editor for composing messages, but many allow you to edit your messages using any editor you want. You then send the message to the recipient by specifying the recipient's address. You can also send the same message to several users at once. This is called broadcasting.

Sent messages are stored in electronic mailboxes until the recipient fetches them. To see if you have any mail, you may have to check your electronic mailbox periodically, although many systems alert you when mail is received. After reading your mail, you can store it in a text file, forward it to other users, or delete it. Copies of memos can be printed out on a printer if you want a paper copy.

All online services and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) offer e-mail, and most also support gateways so that you can exchange mail with users of other systems. Usually, it takes only a few seconds or minutes for mail to arrive at its destination. This is a particularly effective way to communicate with a group because you can broadcast a message or document to everyone in the group at once.

Although different e-mail systems use different formats, there are some emerging standards that are making it possible for users on all systems to exchange messages. In the PC world, an important e-mail standard is MAPI. The CCITT standards organization has developed the X.400 standard, which attempts to provide a universal way of addressing messages. To date, though, the de facto addressing standard is the one used by the Internet system because almost all e-mail systems have an Internet gateway.

Another common spelling for e-mail is email.

Chat

Real-time communication between two users via computer. Once a chat has been initiated, either user can enter text by typing on the keyboard and the entered text will appear on the other user's monitor. Most networks and online services offer a chat feature.

Chat in Instant Messaging terms is the ability to open (or start) a conversation with another user or users.

Once such a conversation has been instigated all the members of that conversation are able to communicate (or chat) with each other. Each member of the chat can see what every other member types, and in turn any responses sent will be sent to all other members of the conversation.

Online conversations in which you are immediately able to send messages back and forth to one another is called chat.

Often you'll hear people say, "I was chatting last night to someone from [this state.]" Other times you'll hear them say "I was chatting to someone from [this country.]" Chances are they weren't talking about the telephone, which can cost a few cents every minute. They were probably talking about online chat. Online chat doesn't cost anything extra, as long as you have an Internet connection.

Video Conferencing

Video conferencing is a communications technology that integrates video and audio to connect users anywhere in the world as if they were in the same room. This term usually refers to communication between three or more users who are in at least two locations, rather than one-on-one communication, and it often includes multiple people at each location. Each user or group of users who are participating in a video conference typically must have a computer, a camera, a microphone, a video screen and a sound system. Another requirement is a connection to the communications system that is being used, which in the 21st century usually is the Internet but might also be a satellite-based system, a broadcast signal or other communications technology. When using video conferencing, participants can see and hear each other in real time or close to it, allowing natural face-to-face conversations and visual elements that are not possible with voice-only communications technology.

Uses

This technology is especially popular in the field of business because it allows meetings or conferences to be held without the need for all of the participants to travel to a single location, so it saves time and money. For the same reasons, it also is useful in the fields of academics and medicine. Almost any organization that holds meetings for people from different locations — no matter how far apart they are, whether across town or around the world — can make use of video conferencing.

History

Communications companies have been dabbling in this technology essentially since the invention of television. It was mostly impractical or limited in its use, however, before the advent of broadband Internet. Early devices often suffered from poor picture quality. Videophones, which became available in the 1970s, never became popular because they were quite expensive. With the arrival of broadband Internet in the 1990s, however, users could engage in video conferencing through their home computers simply by buying webcams and the appropriate programs.