METHOD OF MANAGING LOCATIONS OF INFORMATION AND INFORMATION LOCATION MANAGEMENT DEVICE

• US 20090240669A1
• Filed: 03/24/2009
• Published: 09/24/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 03/24/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
• Original Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
• Inventors: Shiga, Satoko, Sato, Akira, ANDO, Takahisa, Asai, Tatsuya, Okamoto, Seishi
• Granted Patent: US 8,122,025 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]

Abstract

An information location management method which is capable of updating information location information corresponding to locations of information which a user desired to acquire, as required. A communication log storage section stores a communication log of emails exchanged with an external device over an external network. An acquisition destination-selecting section reads out the communication log and identifies an other-end party with whom a target user has performed transmission and reception of emails not less than a predetermined number of times to select the other-end party as an information acquisition destination. An information location-generating section extracts key information related to a location of information at the information acquisition destination contained in the emails transmitted and received to and from the information acquisition destination, to generate information location information. The information location information is stored in an information location-accumulating section. An information acquisition device acquires the information based on the information location information accumulated in the information location-accumulating section.

Claims

1. A method of managing information locations of predetermined information existing on a network, comprising:

a procedure in which an acquisition destination-selecting section reads out, from a communication log storage section storing a communication log concerning emails transmitted and received, the communication log within a predetermined time period, and identifies an other-end party with whom a target user has performed transmission and reception of at least one reciprocated pair of emails not less than a predetermined number of times to select the other-end party as an information acquisition destination; and

a procedure in which an information location-generating section extracts key information related to a location of information at the information acquisition destination contained in the emails transmitted and received to and from the information acquisition destination, and based on the key information, generates information location information indicating the location of the information at the information acquisition destination to store the information location information in an information location-accumulating section.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the procedure in which the acquisition destination-selecting section selects the information acquisition destination includes, when the other-end party has performed transmission and reception of at least one reciprocated pair of emails with another user belonging to a same group to which the target user belongs, selecting the other user as the information acquisition destination.

3. The method according to claim 2, wherein the procedure in which the acquisition destination-selecting section selects the information acquisition destination includes, when the target user has not performed the transmission and reception of emails not less than the predetermined number of times with the predetermined time period, performing the selection based on a communication situation between the other user belonging to the same group to which the target user belongs and the other-end party.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the procedure in which the information location-generating section generates the information location information includes acquiring an email address of the other-end party as the key information, extracting a domain name from the email address, and generating a location candidate based on the domain name, as well as determining whether the location candidate exists on the network, and if the location candidate exists, storing the location candidate in the information location-accumulating section.

5. The method according to claim 4, wherein a procedure of generating the location candidate based on the domain name includes:

a step of generating the location candidate by adding a predetermined scheme name to the extracted domain name,

a step of determining whether or not the location candidate exists on the network, and

a step of, when the location candidate generated by addition of the scheme name does not exist and the domain name has a predetermined hierarchical structure, deleting a character string corresponding to a bottom of the domain name and adding the scheme name to thereby generate the location candidate, and

wherein until the existence of the location candidate is confirmed or there is no remaining character string of the domain name, the step of deleting a character string corresponding to the bottom of the domain name to generate the location candidate, and the step of confirming whether or not the location candidate exists are repeated.

6. The method according to claim 5, wherein the procedure of generating the location candidate includes using http or https defining a HTTP protocol as the scheme name.

7. The method according to claim 5, wherein the procedure of generating the location candidate further includes, when the location candidate does not exist on the network, a step of adding, between the scheme name of the location candidate and the domain name, a character string corresponding to a service provided by a domain having the domain name.

8. The method according to claim 5, wherein the procedure of generating the location candidate includes using www as a character string corresponding to a service provided by a domain having the domain name.

9. The method according to claim 1, wherein the procedure in which the information location-generating section generates the information location information includes acquiring bodies of emails transmitted or received to or from the information acquisition destination as the key information;

if a body of each email contains a predetermined information location, reading out the predetermined information location; and

if the predetermined information location appears not less than a predetermined number of times in the bodies of emails, storing the predetermined information location in the information location-accumulating section.

10. The method according to claim 1, wherein the procedure in which the information location-generating section generates the information location information includes, by using an email address of the information acquisition destination as the key information, checking whether or not there is registered the information location information corresponding the email address of the information acquisition destination for another member belonging to a same group to which the target user belongs, in the information location-accumulating section, and if there is registered, associating the information location information with the target user and registering the information location information in the information location-accumulating section.

11. The method according to claim 1, wherein an information location-deleting section reads out the email address of the target user associated with the information location information stored in the information location-accumulating section, and the email address of the information acquisition destination, and based on the email addresses, searches the communication log, to thereby calculate an elapsed time from when transmission or reception of an email was executed between the target user and the information acquisition destination last time, and if the elapsed time exceeds a predetermined time period, deletes the target user stored in the information location-accumulating section, the information acquisition destination, and the information location information associated with the target user and the information acquisition destination, from the information location-accumulating section.

12. The method according to claim 1, wherein when new information location information is registered in the information location-accumulating section, an RSS reader registration processing section registers the new information location information in a crawling destination list of the RSS reader associated with the target reader of the new information location information.

13. An information location management device that manages locations of predetermined information existing on a network, comprising:

an acquisition destination-selecting section to read out, from a communication log storage section storing a communication log concerning emails transmitted and received, the communication log corresponding to a predetermined time period, identify an other-end party with whom a target user has performed transmission and reception of at least one reciprocated pair of emails not less than a predetermined number of times to select the other-end party as an information acquisition destination; and

an information location-generating section to extract key information related to a location of information at the information acquisition destination contained in the emails transmitted and received to and from the information acquisition destination, and based on the key information, generate information location information indicating the location of the information at the information acquisition destination to store the information location information in an information location-accumulating section.

14. A computer-readable storage medium storing an information location management program executed by a computer for managing locations of predetermined information existing on a network,

wherein the information location management program causes a computer to function as:

an acquisition destination-selecting section to read out, from a communication log storage section storing a communication log concerning emails transmitted and received, the communication log corresponding to a predetermined time period, identify an other-end party with whom a target user has performed transmission and reception of at least one reciprocated pair of emails not less than a predetermined number of times to select the other-end party as an information acquisition destination; and

an information location-generating section to extract key information related to a location of information at the information acquisition destination contained in the emails transmitted and received to and from the information acquisition destination, and based on the key information, generate information location information indicating the location of the information at the information acquisition destination to store the information location information in an information location-accumulating section.