V. A. Shiva Ayyadurai, Dr. E-Mail: Inventor of Email, History of Email, Free EMail Tips

Not everyone has access to the same technology for viewing E-Mail. This means that some people can view HTML and text-based E-Mail, while others on old browsers and on many wireless devices can only see text E-Mail. Thus, be concise when writing E-Mail. This will become more and more important for wireless interactions because many have to pay by character received or sent. If you are participating in E-Mail marketing campaigns, ensure that your outbound message can be read by various browsers.

One of the erroneous assumptions is that E-Mail is free. E-Mail is not by any means free. There are many direct and indirect costs associated within this medium. As mentioned in previous articles, it costs money for an organization to handle an inbound customer E-Mail. However, beyond this there are other costs. Spam or junk e- mail costs money to read, process, store and delete. E-Mail containing viruses has many side effects including loss in productivity and potential destruction of valuable information. Large attachments require additional space. Chain letters, forwarding of jokes and participation in flaming debates via E-Mail add to these costs.

Recognize that every E-Mail interaction has a cost including your time, computer hardware and software costs and IT personnel time to maintain the systems. Be frugal with E-Mail; if you're not paying for it, someone is.