Email is so yesterday. Or is it?
Reports of its demise are full of spam.

The number of emails sent and received per day worldwide totaled more than 200 billion in 2017. A report from the Radacati Group expects almost 250 billion emails to be received and sent four years from now.

As for how people use email with their financial advisors, a Morningstar study revealed that 30% preferred weekly emails from their advisor. Another 37% preferred monthly emails. Just 20% liked a quarterly email update; only 9% wanted annual emails.

See how much you know about email. Take this 3-minute quiz, Jeopardy champions and wannabes, and see the answer key at the bottom:

1. What year was the term email first used?

____ 1999

____ 1967

____ 1982

____ 1984

2. Under which U.S. President was the CAN-SPAM Act signed into law?

____ Bill Clinton

____ George H.W. Bush

____ George Bush

____ Teddy Roosevelt

3. When was Microsoft Outlook introduced?

____ 2001

____ 1955

____ 1997

4. Who played Tom Hank’s male sidekick in the 1998 movie “You’ve Got Mail”?

____ Billy Crystal

____ Greg Kinnear

____ Jared Leto

____ Peter Scolari

5. When did the word SPAM first appear in the Oxford English Dictionary?

____ 1440

____ 1900

____ 1977

____ 1998

6. As of 2016, Gmail was less than 10 years old.

____ True

____ False

7. The Associated Press officially declared “email” to be “e-mail” in 2011.

____ Looks right

____ Looks wrong

8. Who sent the world’s first email in 1971?

____ Ray Tomlinson

____ LaDainian Tomlinson

____ Louis Tomlinson

____ Tom Hanks

9. The first electronic advertisement was sent in the late 1970s.

____ True

____ False

10. Everybody checks email on smartphones every day all the time.

____ True

____ False

Answer Key: (1) 1982. (2) Bill Clinton was President in 1998, although Teddy Roosevelt might have enjoyed a canned Spam after his many evenings on horseback. (3) 1997. (4) Greg Kinnear. Peter Scolari was Tom Hanks’ pal on the TV show “Bosom Buddies”. (5) 1998. The Guttenberg Bible first appeared in 1440. (6) True. Google pushed out Gmail in 2007. (7) Looks wrong. “Email” without the dash is the AP way. (8) Ray Tomlinson. (9) True. (10) Well, practically all the time. Infographic presented by Reachmail.

Dan Sondhelm is CEO of Sondhelm Partners. He helps asset managers and mutual funds grow. To read his previous Insight articles, click here. To schedule a complimentary consultation, click here.