Collecting and presenting data including links from communications sent to or from a user

• US 9,514,466 B2
• Filed: 11/11/2010
• Issued: 12/06/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 11/16/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Yahoo Assets LLC
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Jacobson, Joshua Robert Russell, Thatcher, Gregory Garland, Kobashikawa, Brian Tadao, Radez, Robin Andrew, Cort, Frank J.
• Primary Examiner(s): VU, TOAN H
• Application Number:
  US12/944,650
• Publication Number:
  US 20110119593A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,217 Days
• Field of Search: 715/736, 715/205, 715/841, 715/787, 715/788, 715/786, 715/748
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/18 Commands or executable codes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles

Abstract

Information is presented to a user of a user device by a method including: collecting data relating to communications sent to or from the user, including to or from a first person, each communication including a link of a plurality of links; generating personal profiles from the collected data, the profiles comprising a first personal profile of the first person and including a first link of the plurality of links; and presenting the first personal profile to the user, comprising displaying the first link in a user interface on the user device.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

identifying, by a computing device, a plurality of links contained within a plurality of emails between a user of the computing device and a sender, wherein each of the plurality of links is exchanged with the same sender, and is a uniform resource locator that links to a website;

determining, from a string in one of the plurality of emails, information comprising at least one of;

a phone number, an Internet protocol address, an email address, a date, or a time, wherein determining the information includes analyzing one or more words preceding or following the determined information;

storing, by the computing device, the determined information in a profile of the sender;

collecting each of the plurality of links from a body of one or more of the plurality of emails;

presenting, via a user interface operating in conjunction with the computing device, the profile of the sender, the profile displaying a contact network of the sender, and the profile further displaying a list of the identified links that the user has exchanged with the sender in the plurality of emails, wherein the list of identified links is different than contacts in the contact network of the sender;

receiving a search query containing a keyword from the user;

identifying at least two of the plurality of emails that are from the sender and contain the keyword, the keyword including text other than text matching one of the plurality of links;

in response to identifying the emails containing the keyword, displaying an ordered list of links contained within the identified emails, the list ordered by link based on a date associated with an email from the sender containing the link, and wherein the ordered list of links is different than contacts in the contact network of the sender; and

de-duplicating links so that each link is shown in the ordered list only once.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the list of identified links is ordered by date.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

storing, by the computing device, an identified link in the profile of the sender;

associating the identified link with respective information regarding the email containing the identified link in the profile; and

displaying, via the user interface and in response to input from the user, the identified link and at least a portion of the information regarding the email from the profile.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the profile is stored in a database.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the input from the user includes selection, via the user interface, of an email associated with the profile.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of the emails includes multiple links.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the user is a recipient of each of the plurality of emails.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, via the user interface, a selection of a link from the list of the identified links; and

in response to the selection of the link, opening the link.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the information further includes comparing the string to a regular expression defining a pattern of characters.

10. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing computer readable instructions, which when executed, cause a computing device to:

identify, by the computing device, a plurality of links contained within a plurality of emails between a user of the computing device and a sender, wherein each of the plurality of links is exchanged with the same sender, and is a uniform resource locator that links to a website;

determine, from a string in one of the plurality of emails, information comprising at least one of;

a phone number, an Internet protocol address, an email address, a date, or a time, wherein determining the information includes analyzing one or more words preceding or following the determined information;

store, by the computing device, the determined information in a profile of the sender;

collect each of the plurality of links from a body of one or more of the plurality of emails;

present, via a user interface operating in conjunction with the computing device, the profile of the sender, the profile displaying a contact network of the sender, and the profile further displaying a list of the identified links that the user has exchanged with the sender in the plurality of emails, wherein the list of identified links is different than contacts in the contact network of the sender;

receive a search query containing a keyword from the user;

identify at least two of the plurality of emails that are from the sender and contain the keyword, the keyword including text other than text matching one of the plurality of links; and

in response to identifying the emails containing the keyword, display an ordered list of links contained within the identified emails, the list ordered by link based on a date associated with an email from the sender containing the link, and wherein the ordered list of links is different than contacts in the contact network of the sender.

11. A system, comprising:

a processor; and

memory storing instructions configured to instruct the processor to;

identify a plurality of links contained within a plurality of emails between a user of the system and a sender, wherein each of the plurality of links is exchanged with the same sender, and is a uniform resource locator that links to a website;

determine, from a string in one of the plurality of emails, information comprising at least one of;

a phone number, an Internet protocol address, an email address, a date, or a time, wherein determining the information includes analyzing one or more words preceding or following the determined information;

store the determined information in a profile of the sender;

collect each of the plurality of links from a body of one or more of the plurality of emails;

present, via a user interface, the profile of the sender, the profile displaying a contact network of the sender, and the profile further displaying an ordered list of the identified links that the user has exchanged with the sender in the plurality of emails, wherein the list of identified links is different than contacts in the contact network of the sender;

receive a search query containing a keyword from the user;

identify at least two of the plurality of emails that are from the sender and contain the keyword, the keyword including text other than text matching one of the plurality of links; and

in response to identifying the emails containing the keyword, display an ordered list of links contained within the identified emails, the list ordered by link based on a date associated with an email from the sender containing the link, and wherein the ordered list of links is different than contacts in the contact network of the sender.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the instructions are further configured to instruct the processor to de-duplicate links so that each link is shown in the ordered list only once.