Electronic Message System Recipient Recommender

• US 20080071873A1
• Filed: 09/17/2007
• Published: 03/20/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 09/20/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Inventors: GROSS, JOHN NICHOLAS
• Granted Patent: US 8,301,704 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/48 Message addressing, e.g. address format or anonymous messages, aliases

Abstract

An electronic message management system monitors proposed recipients for electronic messages (such as emails) and provides recommendations on alterations to the distribution set, such as by adding or removing recipients.

Claims

1. A method of controlling distribution of electronic messages with a:

computing system comprising;

a. providing an electronic message to be processed;

b. receiving an initial set of designated recipients for said electronic message from a user;

c. evaluating content of said electronic message and/or other electronic message designations by said user with the computing system to determine if said initial set of designated recipients for said electronic message should be modified;

d. forming a final set of designated recipients with the computing system based on the results of step (c).

2. The method of claim 1 wherein said electronic message is compared to prior electronic messages generated by said user or a set of other users related to said user to identify distribution recipients of said prior electronic messages.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein said prior electronic message distribution designations are correlated to identify relationships between recipients and to predict an additional set of recipients to be added to said set of designated recipients to form said final set.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein said prior electronic message distribution designations are correlated to identify relationships between recipients and to predict an additional set of recipients to be removed from said set of designated recipients to form said final set.

5. The method of claim 1, further including a step:

providing a suggestion for a proposed recipient group based on correlating characteristics of recipients and electronic messages associated with said user.

6. The method of claim 2 further including steps:

analyzing a plurality of electronic messages authored by said user or other users to classify content therein and form a set of individual content topics; and

processing said electronic message to determine a topic associated with the same;

wherein said electronic message is compared only to prior electronic messages which are related to said topic.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein said final set includes a first set of additional recipients determined to be correlated above a first specified threshold value with said set of designated recipients.

8. The method of claim 7 further including a step:

predicting a second set of additional recipients determined to be correlated above a second specified threshold value with said first set of additional recipients.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein a sequence used by said user for entering said initial set of designated recipients is monitored to determine a correlation to prior sequences used by said user.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein said electronic electronic messages are emails, and said initial set of designated recipients is obtained from an email address book.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein said final set of designated recipients are derived from said email address book and/or address books from third party accounts.

12. The method of claim 1 further including a step:

providing an alert to the user when an inappropriate recipient is detected.

13. The method of claim 1 wherein step (c) is only performed when said initial set of designated recipients includes a plurality of recipients.

14. The method of claim 1 wherein content of said electronic message is analyzed while the user is generating said electronic message.

15. The method of claim 1 wherein prior electronic message designations by the user are pre-computed prior to generating said electronic message to accelerate evaluation during step (c).

16. The method of claim 1 wherein at least part of step (c) is performed while step (a) is taking place.

17. A method of controlling distribution of electronic electronic messages comprising:

a. identifying a electronic message;

b. receiving an initial set of designated recipients for said electronic message;

c. evaluating content of said electronic message to determine if said set of designated recipients should be modified;

d. forming a final set of designated recipients based on the results of step (c).

18. The method of claim 17 wherein said electronic message is also analyzed to identify additional uniform resource locators (URLs) which should be added based on existing URLs in said electronic message.

19. A method of controlling distribution of electronic messages with a computing system comprising:

a. providing an electronic message to be processed by the computing system;

b. receiving an initial set of proposed designated recipients for said electronic message;

c. determining one or more topics associated with said electronic message using the computing system;

d. correlating said initial set of proposed designated recipients to said one or more topics by;

i. rejecting one or more first recipients as needed based on a negative correlation to said one or more topics;

ii. proposing one or more second recipients as needed based on a positive correlation to said one or more topics;

e. presenting a list of said one or more first recipients, and said one or more second recipients, to an author of said electronic message;

f. receiving feedback from said author indicating a preference for a final set of designated recipients, including which of said one or more first recipients and/or said one or more second recipients are to be included in such final set;

g. distributing said electronic message only to said final set of designated recipients under control of the computing system.

20. A method of controlling distribution of electronic electronic messages comprising:

a. generating a electronic message;

b. receiving an initial set of designated recipients for said electronic message from a user;

c. evaluating prior electronic message distribution designations by said user to determine if said set of designated recipients should be modified;

d. forming a final set of designated recipients based on the results of step (c).

21. The method of claim 19 wherein said electronic message is also analyzed to identify additional uniform resource locators (URLs) which should be added based on existing URLs in said electronic message.