Web Hosting and E-mail Services (Tristan Andrews)
Apr 21, 2009
When you get your web hosting it needs to include the correct e-mail accounts and e-mail services. Every person in your company requiring e-mail should be provided an e-mail account in the hosting services. POP e-mail means post office protocol. It is one standard protocol for sending and receiving e-mail; this means that e-mail arrives and is saved on your server until you look at your mail. You get your mail by pickup through a client e-mail program such as Thunderbird or Outlook.
IMAP is also a standard protocol for sending and receiving e-mail. IMAP means Internet message access protocol. It keeps your messages until you open your mail just like POP e-mail does. IMAP is a better method than POP because the e-mail deposited there can be accessed etcetera from different computers like home, library, and office. POP only supports e-mail on one computer.
Web based e-mail is very popular and it can be opened from different computers through a web browser without an e-mail client like Thunderbird or Outlook. You can send and receive e-mail this way. It is so convenient. Some of the web based e-mail providers are keromail, Yahoo, hotmail, g-mail, excite, and Lycos.
You can get e-mail hosting through your web hosting provider for your business, which is the best method for a small to medium size business. You don't have the resources for an in-house e-mail system like large companies do. Your hosting provider will have the operating system, applications, data center, and network devices to host your e-mail.
A hosted e-mail exchange is more often used than web based e-mail for business and it has more shared capabilities. This means other people in your company can edit your e-mail and you can give them various e-mail tasks, unlike the majority of web based e-mail. A lot of hosting providers give you mailing list options, which are very useful if you want to send mass mailings like newsletters and opt-in offers.
Other shared options include tasks like collaborating on tasks, delegation of read/write capabilities, in other words you can get an assistant to design events in your stead like business, not in office, and holidays. Various colors and statuses can be given to different events.
With these advantages and disadvantages in mind you are armed to make a decision about which type of e-mail to use for your business enterprise. A very small business may use web based e-mail for some things like receiving newsletters or other information vehicles that help the owner learn new skills to use in his business and hosting e-mail for other business.
Now you can decide which method is best for your business or a combination of the two. The best one to use for customer response/contact is your e-mail service provided by your web hosting provider; it is easy to give it a name relating to your company and you'll be going to your hosting companies site for other reasons like working with your FTP.
About the AuthorTristan Andrews is a freelance author who writes articles about Web Hosting and Web Host Resources..