Prioritization of recipient email messages

• US 8,032,602 B2
• Filed: 02/18/2009
• Issued: 10/04/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 02/18/2009
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Snap, Inc.
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Rahman, Javed, Lavoie, Jason D.
• Primary Examiner(s): Barqadle; Yasin
• Assistant Examiner(s): Nguyen; Van Kim T
• Application Number:
  US12/372,846
• Publication Number:
  US 20100211644A1
• Time in Patent Office: 958 Days
• Field of Search: 709/206, 709/238, 709/245
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/226 Delivery according to priorities

Abstract

A conveyed set of recipient email messages can be identified. An event triggering the conveyed set of email message to be prioritized relative to each other can be detected. Responsive to the detected event, a priority score for each of the emails in the conveyed set can be determined based upon recipient specific criteria. The recipient specific criteria can be based upon recipient behavior regarding a set of previous email messages. The priority score can be calculated base upon prioritizing factors determined from patterns discovered in the recipient behavior regarding the set of previous email messages. At least one programmatic action can be performed based upon the determined priority scores of the email messages.

Claims

1. A method for prioritizing a set of email messages comprising:

identifying, via a computing device executing computer program instructions that are stored in at least one non-transitory storage medium, a conveyed set of recipient email messages conveyed to a recipient having a recipient unique email address;

detecting, via a computing device executing computer program instructions that are stored in at least one non-transitory storage medium, an event triggering the conveyed set of email messages to be prioritized relative to each other;

responsive to the detected event, determining, via a computing device executing computer program instructions that are stored in at least one non-transitory storage medium, a priority score for each of the emails in the conveyed set based upon behavior of the recipient with regards to a set of past email messages, wherein the priority score is further situationally calculated based at least in part on;

a relative position of senders of the email messages for which the priority score is calculated within a reporting structure;

a quantity of different messages associated with each of the email messages of the conveyed set, whereby hot threaded discussions are able to have a relatively greater priority score than email messages lacking a discussion thread; and

semantic content criteria based upon the semantic content of at least one of the subject heading and email body of an associated one of the email messages, wherein the semantic content is compared against previous established content criteria to determine a sematic content criteria score;

wherein said behavior was exhibited before the set of recipient email messages were conveyed to the recipient, wherein a correspondence is determining between each of the recipient email messages and the past email messages and priority determined for each of the recipient email messages is based on the correspondence with past email messages and the behavior exhibited by the recipient for the past email messages, wherein the behavior of the recipient comprises retention and deletion rates for email historically sent by a sender associated with each of the email messages of the conveyed set;

performing, via a computing device executing computer program instructions that are stored in at least one non-transitory storage medium, at least one programmatic action based upon the determined priority scores of the email messages;

receiving, via a computing device executing computer program instructions that are stored in at least one non-transitory storage medium, at least one email message after the performing of the at least one programmatic action, which results in a changed set of recipient email messages;

detecting, via a computing device executing computer program instructions that are stored in at least one non-transitory storage medium, a second event triggering the changed set of conveyed email messages to be prioritized relative to each other;

responsive to the second event, determining, via a computing device executing computer program instructions that are stored in at least one non-transitory storage medium, a priority score for each of the emails in the changed set based upon the behavior of the recipient; and

performing, via a computing device executing computer program instructions that are stored in at least one non-transitory storage medium, at least one programmatic action based upon the determined priority scores of the email messages of the changed set.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein correspondence between each of the recipient email messages is determined by:

parsing portions of the recipient email message into discrete segments, wherein the discrete segments are parsed from the address line, the subject line, and the content body of the email message;

comparing the discrete segments with corresponding segments of the past email segments, wherein segment values for the behavior of the recipient are associated with each of the discrete segments; and

computing the priority score by summing the segment values.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

for each of the email messages, parsing, via a computing device executing computer program instructions that are stored in at least one non-transitory storage medium, a plurality of previously defined tokens from the email messages;

calculating, via a computing device executing computer program instructions that are stored in at least one non-transitory storage medium, a token score for each of the tokens, wherein the token score is based upon a token probability table computed from recipient behavior regarding a set of previously analyzed email messages; and

determining, via a computing device executing computer program instructions that are stored in at least one non-transitory storage medium, the priority score based upon a summation of the calculated token scores.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

ascertaining, via a computing device executing computer program instructions that are stored in at least one non-transitory storage medium, a set of previous email messages and recipient behavior regarding each of the previous email messages, where the set of previous email messages and the recipient behavior are utilized as training data;

quantifying, via a computing device executing computer program instructions that are stored in at least one non-transitory storage medium, prioritizing factors by analyzing the training data; and

determining, via a computing device executing computer program instructions that are stored in at least one non-transitory storage medium, the priority score for each of the email messages using the quantified prioritizing factors.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

classifying, via a computing device executing computer program instructions that are stored in at least one non-transitory storage medium, each email message of the set of previous email messages into a discrete set of defined categories;

parsing, via a computing device executing computer program instructions that are stored in at least one non-transitory storage medium, tokens present in the email messages of each defined category;

computing, via a computing device executing computer program instructions that are stored in at least one non-transitory storage medium, a category specific value for each parsed token; and

utilizing, via a computing device executing computer program instructions that are stored in at least one non-transitory storage medium, the category specific value of each parsed token when quantifying the prioritizing factors.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining of the priority score is based upon at least one of:

values of a recipient specific white/black list;

a rate for responding to a type of content contained in email messages;

a rate of responding to specific senders of email messages; and

a relative position of senders of email messages within a reporting structure.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the performing of the at least one programmatic action comprises:

presenting, via a computing device executing computer program instructions that are stored in at least one non-transitory storage medium, at least a portion of the conveyed set of email messages within a user interface of an email application used by a recipient of the email messages, wherein the presentation is ordered by the priority score.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the detected event comprises at least one of a user command to prioritize received emails, a quantity of unread email messages in the conveyed set exceeding a previously defined threshold, and an instantiation of an email application configured associated with the set of recipient email messages.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the behavior of the recipient comprises a rate and frequency of which the previous email messages are received from a sender associated with the each of the recipient email messages.

10. A computer program product for prioritizing a set of email messages comprising a non-transitory computer usable medium having computer usable program code embodied therewith, the computer program product comprising:

computer usable program code stored in at least one non-transitory storage medium configured to identify a conveyed set of recipient email messages conveyed to a recipient having a recipient unique email address;

computer usable program code stored in at least one non-transitory storage medium configured to detect an event triggering the conveyed set of email messages to be prioritized relative to each other;

computer usable program code stored in at least one non-transitory storage medium configured to, responsive to the detected event, determining a priority score for each of the emails in the conveyed set based upon behavior of the recipient with regards to a set of past email messages, wherein the priority score is further situationally calculated based at least in part on;

a relative position of senders of the email messages for which the priority score is calculated within a reporting structure;

a quantity of different messages associated with each of the email messages of the conveyed set, whereby hot threaded discussions are able to have a relatively greater priority score than email messages lacking a discussion thread; and

semantic content criteria based upon the semantic content of at least one of the subject heading and email body of an associated one of the email messages, wherein the semantic content is compared against previous established content criteria to determine a sematic content criteria score;

wherein said behavior was exhibited before the set of recipient email messages were conveyed to the recipient, wherein a correspondence is determining between each of the recipient email messages and the past email messages and priority determined for each of the recipient email messages is based on the correspondence with past email messages and the behavior exhibited by the recipient for the past email messages, wherein the behavior of the recipient comprises retention and deletion rates for email historically sent by a sender associated with each of the email messages of the conveyed set;

computer usable program code stored in at least one non-transitory storage medium configured to perform at least one programmatic action based upon the determined priority scores of the email messages;

computer usable program code stored in at least one non-transitory storage medium configured to receive at least one email message after the performing of the at least one programmatic action, which results in a changed set of recipient email messages;

computer usable program code stored in at least one non-transitory storage medium configured to detect a second event triggering the changed set of conveyed email messages to be prioritized relative to each other;

computer usable program code stored in at least one non-transitory storage medium configured to responsive to the second event, determining a priority score for each of the emails in the changed set based upon the behavior of the recipient; and

computer usable program code stored in at least one non-transitory storage medium configured to perform at least one programmatic action based upon the determined priority scores of the email messages of the changed set.

11. A computing device comprising hardware and software, wherein said software is stored on at least one non-transitory storage medium, wherein said hardware is operable to execute said software causing said computing device to:

identify a conveyed set of recipient email messages conveyed to a recipient having a recipient unique email address;

detect an event triggering the conveyed set of email messages to be prioritized relative to each other,

responsive to the detected event, determine a priority score for each of the emails in the conveyed set based upon behavior of the recipient with regards to a set of past email messages, wherein the priority score is further situationally calculated based at least in part on;

a relative position of senders of the email messages for which the priority score is calculated within a reporting structure;

a quantity of different messages associated with each of the email messages of the conveyed set, whereby hot threaded discussions are able to have a relatively greater priority score than email messages lacking a discussion thread; and

semantic content criteria based upon the semantic content of at least one of the subject heading and email body of an associated one of the email messages, wherein the semantic content is compared against previous established content criteria to determine a sematic content criteria score;

wherein said behavior was exhibited before the set of recipient email messages were conveyed to the recipient, wherein a correspondence is determining between each of the recipient email messages and the past email messages and priority determined for each of the recipient email messages is based on the correspondence with past email messages and the behavior exhibited by the recipient for the past email messages, wherein the behavior of the recipient comprises retention and deletion rates for email historically sent by a sender associated with each of the email messages of the conveyed set;

perform at least one programmatic action based upon the determined priority scores of the email messages;

receive at least one email message after the performing of the at least one programmatic action, which results in a changed set of recipient email messages;

detect a second event triggering the changed set of conveyed email messages to be prioritized relative to each other;

responsive to the second event, determine a priority score for each of the emails in the changed set based upon the behavior of the recipient, and

perform at least one programmatic action based upon the determined priority scores of the email messages of the changed set.