Automatically generated highlight view of electronic interactions

• US 20060195785A1
• Filed: 02/28/2005
• Published: 08/31/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 02/28/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Cheng, Lili, Counts, Scott J., Portnoy, William L.
• Granted Patent: US 8,316,315 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/700
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]

Abstract

A system and method for generating a highlight view of electronic interactions, such as, emails, instant messages, audio messages and/or video messages is provided. The highlight view can facilitate a user'"'"'s understanding of the electronic interactions. The electronic interactions can comprise emails associated with conversation threads of a discussion list posted and/or received by a plurality of users. The highlight view system can include, for a given period of time, a list of participants in the discussion list, a list of conversation threads and/or a linear progression of one or more of the conversation threads. The linear progression of one or more conversation threads can include signal word(s), such as, “stated, “asked”, “responded”, “wrapped up”, “disagreed”, “agreed” etc. that facilitate a user'"'"'s comprehension of the individual e-mails which form the conversation thread. An electronic interactions highlight system can include an input component that receives electronic interactions (e.g., emails associated with conversation thread(s) of a discussion list) and an analysis component that analyzes the electronic interactions and automatically generates a highlight view of the electronic interactions.

Claims

1. An electronic interactions highlight system comprising:

an input component that receives a plurality of electronic interactions; and

,

an analysis component that analyzes the plurality of electronic interactions and automatically generates a highlight view of the plurality of electronic interactions.

2. The system of claim 1, the plurality of electronic interactions associated with a plurality of topics.

3. The system of claim 2, the analysis component generating the highlight view based, at least in part, upon a hierarchical organization of the plurality of topics.

4. The system of claim 1, the plurality of electronic interactions associated with a predetermined period of time.

5. The system of claim 1, the plurality of electronic interactions comprising at least one of a document, an email, an instant message, an audio message and a video message.

6. The system of claim 1, the analysis component employs collaborative filtering and keyword extraction to generate the highlight view.

7. The system of claim 1, the analysis component employs logical inferences including analyzing the frequency of keywords in the plurality of electronic interactions and weighting such words as of being of potential interest to a given user.

8. The system of claim 1, the electronic interactions comprising comments related to conversation threads.

9. The system of claim 1, the highlight view comprising additional signals words between at least some of the electronic interactions.

10. The system of claim 1, extraneous information from at least some of the electronic interactions filtered by the analysis component prior to generation of the highlight view.

11. The system of claim 1, analysis by the analysis component is based, at least in part, upon user criteria.

12. The system of claim 11, the user criteria comprising at least one of a keyword, a topic, an electronic interaction originator, and information associated with an electronic interaction originator.

13. The system of claim 1, at least some of the plurality of electronic interactions automatically summarized by the analysis component, the automatically summarized electronic interactions included in the highlight view.

14. A method of generating a highlight view of a plurality of electronic interactions comprising:

receiving a plurality of electronic interactions;

analyzing the plurality of electronic interactions; and

,

generating a highlight view of the plurality of electronic interactions based, at least in part, upon the analysis of the electronic interactions.

15. The method of claim 14, the electronic interactions comprising comments related to conversation threads.

16. The method of claim 14, the electronic interactions comprising e-mails.

17. The method of claim 14, analyzing the plurality of electronic interactions comprising employment of collaborative filtering and keyword extraction.

18. The method of claim 14, analyzing the plurality of electronic interactions being based, upon user criteria.

19. A computer readable medium having stored thereon computer executable instructions for carrying out the method of claim 14.

20. An electronic interactions highlight system comprising:

means for receiving a plurality of electronic interactions;

means for analyzing the plurality of electronic interactions; and

,

means for automatically generating a highlight view of the plurality of electronic interactions.