Email is delivered to the recipient so they don't have to
work to get it -- they just open their Inbox and there it is.
Technologies are sometimes labeled push or pull as described
below:
- Pull. These technologies require the user to actively
go and retrieve the information. A library, the Web, and
the Usenet are pull technologies, requiring active participation
of a human being to retrieve the information.
- Push. These technologies deliver information
to the user so all they have to do is receive it. Radio,
television,
and email are push technologies.
One of the reasons email has been such a big success is because
it is a push technology. The person that sends the email writes
it, then POP3 and SMTP transmit
it, and all the recipient has to do is open his email program
and double-click on the email to read it.
An advantage of push technologies is their ease of use --
they require a minimum of effort on the part of the recipient,
which greatly supports adoption because they get used more
often. Partly because of this feature, the use of email has
greatly outstripped all other Internet applications since its
creation, even after the explosive development of the Web.
