Ranking Messages in an Electronic Messaging Environment

• US 20100077041A1
• Filed: 09/18/2009
• Published: 03/25/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 09/19/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: MailRank, Inc. (Facebook, Inc.)
• Inventors: Cham, James, Cowan, David, Kurzweil, Ethan
• Granted Patent: US 8,095,612 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 15/16 Combinations of two or more digital computers each having at least an arithmetic unit, a program unit and a register, e.g. for a simultaneous processing of several programs coordinating program control therefor G06F9/52; in regulating and control system G05B
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]

Abstract

The present invention provides methods and systems to score messages exchanged over a network. The methods and systems may gather message interactions of a recipient. A message originating from a sender and destined for the recipient may be received at an email client. A sender score of the message may be determined based on one or more of sender information, the gathered message interactions, and one or more attributes associated with the message. The message may be marked with the determined score in a user interface associated with the email client.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

gathering message interactions of a recipient;

receiving from a sender, a message destined for the recipient;

determining a sender score of the message based on one or more of sender information, the gathered message interactions, and one or more attributes associated with the message;

marking the message with a rank derived from the determined score; and

forwarding the marked message to the recipient.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein gathering the interaction of the recipient comprises gathering at least one of:

a response of the recipient to the message, and responses of the recipient to other messages.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

allocating the determined sender score to a second set of messages that originated from the sender;

marking the second set of messages with a rank derived from the sender score; and

forwarding the marked messages to the recipient.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the sender score is based on frequency and recentness of the gathered message interactions.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein gathering the interactions of the recipient comprises gathering a feedback from the recipient on the sender score.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the score is determined based on a transitive ITM.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein the score is determined based on a recursive percentile of the sender'"'"'s influence.

22. The method of claim 1, wherein the sender information comprises a recipient defined score of the sender.

23. The method of claim 1, wherein the sender information comprises a predetermined score of the sender.

5-11. -11. (canceled)

13-15. -15. (canceled)

18-21. -21. (canceled)

24-25. -25. (canceled)

26. A system for scoring messages exchanged over a network, the system comprising:

a plug-in for an email client, the plug-in for gathering message interactions of a recipient with a plurality of senders, wherein the plug-in views a message from a sender and destined for the recipient;

a ranking server for determining a sender score of the message based on one or more of sender information, the gathered message interactions, and one or more message attributes, and for sending the score to the email client to be presented along with the message.

27. The system of claim 26, wherein the plug-in for an email client gathers at least one of a response of the recipient to the message, and responses of the recipient to other messages.

28. The system of claim 26, wherein the ranking server allocates the determined sender score to a second set of messages that originated from the sender, and displays the second set of messages and the determined sender score in an user interface associated with the email client.

29. The system of claim 26, wherein the ranking server determines the sender score based on frequency and recentness of the gathered message interactions.

36. The system of claim 26, wherein the gathered information is an input from a corporate administrator.

37. The system of claim 26, wherein the gathered information is a feedback from the recipient on the sender score.

41. The system of claim 26, wherein the score is determined based on a transitive ITM.

42. The system of claim 26, wherein the score is determined based on a recursive percentile of the sender'"'"'s influence.

47. The system of claim 26, wherein the sender information comprises a recipient defined score of the sender.

48. The system of claim 26, wherein the sender information comprises a predetermined score of the sender.

30-35. -35. (canceled)

38-40. -40. (canceled)

43-46. -46. (canceled)

49-51. -51. (canceled)

52. A system comprising:

a plug-in for an email client for gathering message interactions of a recipient related to a message that originated from a sender and for marking the message with a message score provided from a ranking server, wherein the message score is determined based on one or more of sender information, the gathered message interactions, and one or more attributes associated with the message.