Electronic message system recipient recommender

• US 8,301,704 B2
• Filed: 09/17/2007
• Issued: 10/30/2012
• 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
• Primary Examiner(s): Wang, Liangche A
• Assistant Examiner(s): NDIAYE, CHEIKH T
• Application Number:
  US11/856,191
• Publication Number:
  US 20080071873A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,870 Days
• Field of Search: 709/206, 709/207, 709/201, 709/204
• 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:

providing an electronic message to be processed with the computing system;

identifying recipient designations made by a user for electronic messages, including designation times associated with said recipient designations;

receiving an initial set of designated recipients for said electronic message manually identified by a user with the computing system;

determining with the computing system if said initial set includes multiple designated recipients from a group of individuals in one or more message address books;

using the computing system to evaluate electronic message designations provided by said user including at a time after said user has completed manually providing all of said initial set of designated recipients to determine if said initial set of designated recipients for said electronic message should be modified;

wherein when multiple designated recipients are identified in said initial set, the computing system correlates multiple ones of said initial set of designated recipients provided by the user with a second set of undesignated recipients taken from said one or more message address books to automatically identify additional potential recipients;

further wherein a weighting consideration is given to said recipient designation times as part of determining if said initial set of designated recipients should be modified; and

forming a final set of designated recipients with the computing system, including any additional potential recipients added to said initial set of designated recipients, based on the evaluation of electronic message designations provided by said user.

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

3. The method of claim 1, wherein prior electronic message distribution designations are correlated by a collaborative filtering algorithm executing on the computing system to identify relationships between recipients in said one or more message address books 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 prior electronic message distribution designations are correlated to identify relationships between recipients in said one or more message address books 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 to said user based on correlating shared characteristics of recipients in said one or more message address books and content of 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 in said one or more message address books 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 from said second set of undesignated 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 from said second set of undesignated recipients determined to be correlated above a second specified threshold value with said first set of additional recipients and presenting said second set of additional recipients to said user for inclusion as recipients after presenting said final set.

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 and a correlation between recipients.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein said electronic messages are emails, and said initial set of designated recipients is obtained from said one or more message address books including an email address book for said user.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein said final set of designated recipients are derived from said user email address book and address books for said one or more message address books that include from third party accounts within a common organization or social network group associated with said user.

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

providing an alert to the user when an inappropriate recipient is detected in said initial set of designated recipients.

13. The method of claim 1 wherein evaluation of electronic message of electronic message designations provided by said user is only performed when said initial set of designated recipients includes a plurality of recipients from a common social network group associated with said user.

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 correlations of recipients of prior electronic message designations by the user are pre-computed prior to generating said electronic message to accelerate evaluation of electronic message designations provided by said user.

16. The method of claim 1 wherein at least part of the evaluation of electronic message designations provided by said user is performed while said electronic message to be processed is being provided.

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

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

identifying recipient designations made by a user for electronic messages, including designation times associated with said recipient designations;

receiving an initial set of user proposed manually designated recipients from a group of individuals in one or more message address books for said electronic message;

determining if said initial set includes multiple designated recipients;

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

correlating with the computing system said initial set of user proposed manually designated recipients to said one or more topics including at a time after said user has completed providing all of said initial set of user proposed manually designated recipients by;

rejecting automatically with the computing system one or more first manually designated recipients as needed based on a negative correlation to said one or more topics;

proposing one or more second recipients automatically with the computing system from said group of individuals in said one or more message address books as needed based on a positive correlation of said group of individuals to said one or more topics;

wherein said correlating includes a weighting consideration given to said recipient designation times as part of determining if said initial set of designated recipients should be modified;

presenting a list with the computing system of said one or more first recipients, and said one or more second recipients, to an author of said electronic message;

receiving feedback with the computing system 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;

repeating each of the preceding correlating, presenting, and receiving steps when said initial set does not match said final set, so that any changes to recipients are also correlated to locate additional first recipients and/or second recipients;

distributing said electronic message only to said final set of designated recipients under control of the computing system when said final set matches said initial set; and

wherein the preceding correlating, presenting, receiving, and repeating steps are performed only if said user provides an initial manually designated set that includes multiple designated recipients from said group of individuals in said one or more message address books.

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

generating an electronic message;

identifying recipient designations made by a user for electronic messages, including designation times associated with said recipient designations;

receiving from a user an initial set of manually designated recipients from a group of individuals in one or more message address books for said electronic message with a computing system;

wherein said user and said initial set of manually designated recipients are associated as part of a common organization;

determining if said initial set includes multiple designated recipients with the computing system;

when multiple designated recipients are identified in said initial set, evaluating prior electronic message distribution designations by said user as well as distribution designations within said common organization by said set of manually designated recipients including at a time after said user has completed providing all of said initial set of designated recipients to determine if said set of designated recipients should be modified;

wherein said evaluating step by the computing system correlates multiple ones of said initial set of designated recipients with a second set of undesignated recipients taken from said one or more message address books to identify additional potential recipients;

further wherein a weighting consideration given to said recipient designation times as part of determining if said initial set of designated recipients should be modified; and

forming a final set of designated recipients based on the determination of whether said initial set includes multiple designated recipients and the evaluation of prior electronic message distribution designations when said initial set includes multiple designated recipients.

19. The method of claim 18 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, and at least some of said additional URLs are presented to said user for potential inclusion in such electronic message.

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

providing an electronic message to be processed;

identifying recipient designations made by a user for electronic messages, including designation times associated with said recipient designations;

receiving an initial set of designated recipients from a group of individuals in one or more message address books for said electronic message from a user;

evaluating content of said electronic message and/or other electronic message designations by said user including after said user has completed providing all of said initial set of designated recipients with the computing system to correlate said initial set of designated recipients with a second set of undesignated recipients taken from said one or more message address books to determine if said initial set of designated recipients for said electronic message should be modified;

wherein said evaluating step by the computing system automatically identifies any additional potential recipients even when all of said initial set provided by said user includes only a single recipient;

further wherein said correlating includes a weighting consideration given to said recipient designation times as part of determining if said initial set of designated recipients should be modified;

forming a final set of designated recipients with the computing system, including any additional potential recipients added to said initial set of designated recipients, based on the evaluation of content of said electronic message and/or other electronic message designations by said user.

21. The method of claim 1 wherein said weighting consideration reduces a correlation of a recipient designation to said user based on an age of said designation time, such that older designations are weighted less than newer designations.

22. The method of claim 1 wherein said weighting consideration increases a correlation of a recipient designation to said user based on an age of said designation time, such that older designations are weighted more than newer designations.

23. The method of claim 1 wherein said weighting consideration is adjusted on a topic basis.

24. The method of claim 1 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, and at least some of said additional URLs are presented to said user for potential inclusion in such electronic message.

25. The method of claim 17 wherein said weighting consideration increases a correlation of a recipient designation to said user based on an age of said designation time, such that older designations are weighted more than newer designations.

26. The method of claim 17 wherein said weighting consideration reduces a correlation of a recipient designation to said user based on an age of said designation time, such that older designations are weighted less than newer designations.

27. The method of claim 17 wherein said weighting consideration is adjusted on a topic basis.

28. 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, and at least some of said additional URLs are presented to said user for potential inclusion in such electronic message.