What are the advantages of email?email vs. snail mail

The primary advantage is that it's quick. As soon as you send a message, it goes through, and if it doesn't, you are soon notified. (The downside, though, is that the receiver must open up his or her session to check for new mail to indeed receive it.) You can also send out a message automatically to a long list of receivers, and they get it as soon as you touch "send." This saves a lot of time and effort and assures automatically that everyone in a particular group (colleagues or teachers, for example, about a future meeting) has been notified.

Another advantage is that you can send documents by attachment, similar to a fax, as long as they are not "oversized."  This is a quick way to get detailed information in a hurry, particularly when "time is money." It's also a way to keep in touch more personally with contacts by sending family snapshots, "live" (animated) Christmas greeting cards, etc. to friends and relatives.

Email is also a handy tool to stock old correspondance or current address lists. There's no paper, no mess, and you always find it in the same place.

Another advantage on the receiving end is that you can check your mail when you want instead of being disturbed by phone calls. As long as you are a regular checker-upper, this arrangement ususally works out well. You can also check your box when on vacation instead of having a load of "snail mail" piled up for you to read when you get back home.

For some businesses, email means good business since it is another tool to widen one's potential market. More and more goods and services are bought on line, and Internet business has already a well-anchored place in competitive business. A well-planned site has high visibility and quick orders can be put through. Also potential receivers can be posted of updates upon request. This saves hours of "shopping around" time. The downside, of course, is the endless solicitation one gets by spam once one's email address gets circulated. Some spam filters at least help you deal with this problem by automatically deleting unwanted messages.

And, of course, another big plus about email is that it's free. No explanation needed for that!