Email is clearly the most efficient way for governments to reach
citizens. According to David Daniels, Vice President of JupiterResearch, "87%
of Consumers online time is spent reading their emails" (Dec. 2007).
Email client and ISP choices are a bit more diverse, but there are still clear winners. Citizen subscribers, at a rate of 65.7%, receive government emails sent through GovDelivery at one of the top 5 email domains, including Yahoo!, AOL, Hotmail, Gmail, and Comcast. We can only assume that the vast majority of citizens are using the email clients provided by these vendors to read the messages, and not forwarding the messages to a separate email client, such as Mozilla Thunderbird or Microsoft Outlook. The following chart shows the ISP usage statistics for all GovDelivery subscribers.
The GovDelivery statistics are fairly consistent with overall US Internet usage. While it may be tempting to disregard the small minority of users who use Macintosh, Linux, or PalmOS, government serves everyone. When it is viable, I know that governments want to accommodate these users.
Accommodating email clients and operating system/browser combinations includes avoiding commonly unsupported content, like Flash, javascript (or other scripting languages), or large attachments. It also includes sending emails using common protocols, like Multi-Part MIME or Plain Text that most email clients can render. As technology evolves, and more citizens use more mobile devices to access their email, being flexible will be even more important.
Brett, this statistic is truly incredible:
Email is clearly the most efficient way for governments to reach citizens. According to David Daniels, Vice President of JupiterResearch, "87% of Consumers online time is spent reading their emails" (Dec. 2007).
It would be interesting to understand the trends over the last 10 years. I assume that blackberry usage and use of other mobile handhelds has driven this percentage up over the past several years.