The First Killer App

I only wish I could have invented the first killer app, aka email. What a genius idea and I give props to Ray Tomlinson for having the smarts and creativity in 1971 to develop such a powerful tool that has revolutionized how people, businesses and public entities interact with each other.

After watching a video on the history of the internet in my graduate online media design class, I was shocked to learn Ray wasn't tasked by his employer to develop the email machine, he instead did this totally on his own free time, like a pet project.

I did some more research on Ray and came across a pretty cool and informative Q&A with him on DataMation that posted in 2002 called "A Conversation with the Inventor of Email".

One of the questions touched on when Ray realized how big email was going to be. His answer is not big at first since there were not many computers at that time. He also stated that he never documented the creation of the program, but around 1993 when someone started to ask where email started he knew he had created the program.



Another question touched on Ray's thoughts about Spam. His answer is that he gets irked when he gets it and hopes to see a solution come along to address it. Surprisingly, he is not spending time trying to solve this problem and really hasn't touched the email program after the late 70's. Maybe if Ray still was involved we'd have another genius solution!

Most interesting to me is the question that touched on if Ray has been bothered that his name is not a household name despite the major contributions he has made. His answer is no...how modest of him. Ray states that he is recognized in the geek world and is flattered when non-techy people recognize his name, but getting recognition is not the center of his life. Ray is actually most known for the workstation he built around 1980. According to Ray this was the biggest single thing he's ever done.

I am not sure if I can even come close to Ray's accomplishments, but I am sure thankful he's created such a killer app that keeps my life moving along. Thanks Ray.