AUTOMATICALLY CREATING CONTACT GROUPS AND FOR SUGGESTING AN E-MAIL SENDING LIST

• US 20090327438A1
• Filed: 05/21/2009
• Published: 12/31/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/27/2008
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: ZHANG, JUN, SHAN, SONG WEI, MAO, XINSHENG, CHENG, FU
• Application Number:
  US12/469,832
• Publication Number:
  US 20090327438A1
• 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

There is provided a solution for automatically creating contact groups, a method of the solution comprising: tracking an email sending history of a user, and automatically recording email sending data, wherein the recorded email sending data comprises contact groups, each of which consists of the email addresses and all the receivers of a sent email and corresponding receiving types. There is further provided a solution for suggesting an email sending list to a user, a method of the solution comprising: retrieving one or more contact groups from the recorded email sending data when the user composes a new email; and, presenting to the user the retrieved one or more contact groups as possible sending lists.

Claims

1. A method for automatically creating contact groups comprising:

tracking an email sending history of a user, and automatically recording email sending data, wherein the recorded email sending data comprises contact groups, each of which consists of the email addresses of all the receivers of a sent email and corresponding receiving types.

2. The method according to claim 1, further comprising indexing the contact groups according to the name or email address of a recipient in each of the contact groups.

3. The method according to claim 2, wherein indexing the contact groups according to the name or email address of a recipient in each of the contact groups comprises:

indexing the contact groups according to the name or email address of the first recipient in each of the contact groups.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the email sending data further comprises the timestamps of email sendings, and the method further comprises ordering contact groups according to any one or both of the recentness and the number of times of corresponding email sendings.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the email sending data are stored in a central database shared by a plurality of users.

6. A method for suggesting an email sending list to a user, comprising:

retrieving one or more contact groups from a recorded email sending data when a user composes a new email, wherein the recoded email sending data comprises contact groups, each of which consists of the email addresses of all the receivers of a sent email and corresponding receiving types, wherein the recorded email sending data is maintained by executing computer program products that track en email sending history of the user; and

,

presenting to the user the retrieved one or more contact groups as possible sending lists.

7. The method according to claim 6, wherein presenting to the user the retrieved one or more contact groups as possible sending lists comprises:

presenting ordered contact groups to the user.

8. The method according to claim 6, wherein the retrieving one or more contact groups from the recorded email sending data comprises:

according to all or part of a recipient name or email address input by a user in the recipient field of an email, retrieving, from the email sending data, one or more contact groups having corresponding all or part of a recipient name or email address.

9. An apparatus for automatically creating contact groups, comprising:

a recording module configured to track an email sending history of a user, and automatically record email sending data, wherein the recorded email sending data comprises contact groups, each of which consists of the email addresses of all the receivers of a sent email and corresponding receiving types.

10. The apparatus according to claim 9, further comprising:

an indexing module configured to index the contact groups according to the name or email address of a recipient in each of the contact groups.

11. The apparatus according to claim 10, wherein the indexing module is further configured to index the contact groups according to the name or email address of the first recipient in each of the contact groups.

12. The apparatus according to claim 9, wherein the email sending data further comprises timestamps of email sendings, and the apparatus further comprises an ordering module configured to order contact groups according to any one or both of the recentness and the number of times of corresponding email sendings.

13. The apparatus according to claim 9, wherein the email sending data are stored in a central database shared by a plurality of users.

14. An apparatus for suggesting an email sending list to a user, comprising:

a retrieving module configured to retrieve one or more contact groups from a recorded email sending data when a user composes a new email, wherein the recoded email sending data comprises contact groups, each of which consists of the email addresses of all the receivers of a sent email and corresponding receiving types, wherein the recorded email sending data is maintained by executing computer program products that track en email sending history of the user; and

a presenting module configured to present to the user the retrieved one or more contact groups as possible sending lists.

15. The apparatus according to claim 14, wherein the presenting module is further configured to present ordered contact groups to the user.

16. The apparatus according to claim 14, wherein the retrieving module is further configured to:

according to all or part of a recipient name or email address input by a user in the recipient field of an email, retrieve, from the email sending data, one or more contact groups having corresponding all or part of a recipient name or email address.