Using message sampling to determine the most frequent words in a user mailbox

• US 8,515,974 B2
• Filed: 09/02/2011
• Issued: 08/20/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 12/10/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Consul, Ashish, Gorti, Suryanarayana M., Wilson, Michael Geoffrey Andrew, Kleewein, James C.
• Primary Examiner(s): PHAM, KHANH B
• Application Number:
  US13/224,434
• Publication Number:
  US 20110320467A1
• Time in Patent Office: 718 Days
• Field of Search: 707/613, 707/750, 704/246, 704/251
• US Class Current: 707/750
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/44 Statistical methods, e.g. probability models
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]

Abstract

A method is presented for generating a list of frequently used words for an email application on a server computer. When a request is received for a word frequency list for emails stored in a user'"'"'s mailbox, a word frequency list is returned if one exists. If the word frequency list does not exist, an asynchronous process is started on the server computer to generate a word frequency list. If the word frequency list exists but it is older than an aging limit, an asynchronous process is started on the server computer to regenerate the word frequency list. The word frequency list is stored in the user'"'"'s mailbox along with a timestamp indicating the date and time that the list was created or updated.

Claims

1. A server computer comprising processing and communication resources and configured to:

receive a request to provide a list of frequently used words in email messages stored in a user mailbox;

if a word frequency list does not exist, start an asynchronous process in part to provide the word frequency list, the asynchronous process operates to;

randomly sample server memory blocks that include email messages and parse a predetermined number of the email messages and generate one or more unique words for each of the predetermined number of email messages; and

generate a word frequency list for the one or more unique words, the word frequency list providing a count associated with the predetermined number of email messages in which each unique word is found;

use the asynchronous process to regenerate the word frequency list if existing and when an age of the word frequency list is greater than an aging limit; and

store the word frequency list as part of a user mailbox including a timestamp to indicate a date and time when the word frequency list was created or updated for the user mailbox.

2. The server of claim 1, further configured to use a distributed random sampling method.

3. The server of claim 1, further configured to obtain a subset of the predetermined email messages from a first random memory block before selecting a second random memory block.

4. The server of claim 1, further configured to parse a maximum number of email messages obtained from each random memory block.

5. The server of claim 1, further configured to receive the request using a voice mail transcription application.

6. The server of claim 5, the voice mail transcription application further configured to use the word frequency list to transcribe a voice mail message into text, the word frequency list used to help distinguish between similarly sounding words in the voice mail message.

7. The server of claim 1, wherein the request is received from a voice mail transcription application running on another server computer.

8. The server of claim 1, wherein the request is from an advertising application.

9. The server of claim 1, wherein the predetermined number of email messages to parse is configurable.

10. The server of claim 1, further configured to not include one or more words containing one or more numbers, one or more non-language characters, or words not containing a vowel in the word frequency list.

11. A method comprising:

requesting a list of frequently used words in email messages stored in a user mailbox;

using an asynchronous process as part of randomly selecting a first server memory block to identify one or more unique words associated with a number of parsed email messages of the first server memory block to generate a word frequency list to include the one or more unique words associated with the number of parsed email messages of the first server memory block;

randomly selecting a second server memory block to identify one or more unique words associated with a number of parsed email messages of the second server memory block and include the one or more unique words associated with the number of parsed email messages of the second server memory block in the word frequency list;

updating a count in the word frequency list for each unique word identified in the number of parsed email messages of the second server memory block already included in the word frequency list;

using the count to identify a number of email messages that includes each unique word of the word frequency list and

using the asynchronous process to regenerate the word frequency list if an age of the word frequency list is greater than an aging limit.

12. The method of claim 11, further including:

randomly selecting server memory blocks from a list of server memory blocks;

parsing email messages from the server memory blocks until a predetermined limit is reached; and

updating the count of unique words included in the word frequency list for each email message in which the unique word is contained and adding each unique word to the word frequency list that is not already included in the word frequency list.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the predetermined limit is configurable.

14. The method of claim 11, further comprising regenerating the word frequency list by starting the asynchronous process based in part on the age of the word frequency list.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein a predetermined criteria for unique words excludes words containing one or more numbers, containing non-language characters and not containing at least one vowel.

16. A system including server computer memory, the system configured to:

use a list of frequently used words in stored email messages that includes the use of an asynchronous process to generate a word frequency list and regenerate an existing word frequency list based in part on an aging limit, wherein the system uses the asynchronous process to regenerate the existing word frequency list when an age of the existing word frequency list is greater than an aging limit;

use a list of one or more server memory blocks that contain email messages for a user mailbox, each of the one or more server memory blocks to store user email messages;

randomly use server memory blocks from the list of one or more server memory blocks;

parse one or more of the email messages of randomly used server memory blocks to identify unique words of the one or more email messages;

create the word frequency list for parsed email messages to include each unique word that is assigned a count in the word frequency list, wherein the count is updated for each parsed email in which each unique word is found; and

store a frequency count of each unique word for the user mailbox.

17. The system of claim 16, further configured to randomly select a different server memory block from the list of one or more server memory blocks, parse each email message of the different server memory block to identify unique words, update the count in the word frequency list for each unique word already included in the word frequency list, and add each unique word to the word frequency list that is not included in the word frequency list.

18. The system of claim 16, further configured to start the asynchronous process to regenerate the word frequency list based in part on the age of the word frequency list.

19. The system of claim 16, further comprising a messaging server.