Inventor of email : “I didn’t see spam coming”

March 12, 2008 by Mark O'Neill |

Thirty-seven years ago, Ray Tomlinson sent a message of random letters from one computer to another using software called “Send Message Program”. In doing so, he unleashed e-mail upon the world.

Since then, his baby has grown by leaps and bounds - 2 million emails sent per second, the transformation of global communications, the development of sophisticated email services such as Gmail and Yahoo - and some great cyber sex opportunities.

But it is the estimated 52 hours a year spent on dealing with all the spam sent to us that was one of the focuses of a newspaper interview with 66 year old Tomlinson who still works for BBN Technologies, the company he was working for when he made his email discovery back in 1971.

It is an interesting interview and worth reading.

Oh and he doesn’t like Outlook and prefers Thunderbird. My kind of guy!