Patent Application
20100030865
The present disclosure relates generally to the field of e-mail communication, and more particularly to methods and systems for prioritizing e-mail messages in an e-mail client application based on the status of existing e-mail messages.
Electronic mail (e-mail) messages are messages that are sent or received electronically over a computer network. E-mail messages are typically stored on an e-mail server and accessed by an e-mail client application. E-mail client applications include user interfaces that can reside on a conventional computer or other device such as mobile telephone. For example, an e-mail message can be generated by a person at one conventional computer and sent to another person who may access the e-mail message by way of a mobile phone, provided that both the conventional computer and the mobile phone have an e-mail client application and have access to an e-mail server.
Communication by way of e-mail messages has become popular, especially in business settings. This popularity has caused a lot of e-mail users to get an excessive amount of e-mail messages that are of little importance to the e-mail user. Each e-mail message that the user receives requires time and effort to process and to prioritize. To save time, an e-mail user may read a high percentage of e-mail messages that originate from one person, such as a manager, while only reading a small percentage of e-mail messages that originate from another e-mail address, such as a company newsletter.
What is needed is a method to automatically prioritize e-mail messages in an e-mail client application so that the e-mail user does not have to waste time and effort searching through less important e-mail messages.
The invention provides methods and systems for prioritizing e-mail messages based on the status of existing e-mail messages.
An aspect of the present invention provides a method for prioritizing e-mail messages. This method includes the steps of presenting a list including a plurality of e-mail messages where each e-mail message includes a status indicating whether the e-mail message has been opened; assigning an index number to each e-mail sender where the index number includes the ratio of the total number of e-mail messages from an e-mail sender that includes a status of opened to the total number of e-mail messages received from the sender; and receiving a new e-mail message from an e-mail sender and placing the received e-mail message in the list of e-mail messages of an e-mail client application based on a revised index number for the e-mail sender, where the revised index number includes a recalculation of the index number based on a new total number of e-mail messages received from the e-mail sender of the new e-mail message.
The present invention provides methods and systems for prioritizing e-mail messages based on the status of existing e-mail messages. Specifically, the invention provides methods and systems for prioritizing e-mail messages based on the number of e-mail messages from e-mail senders that have been opened versus the number of e-mail messages from e-mail senders that have not been opened.
Turning now to the drawings, in which like numerals indicate like elements throughout the figures, exemplary embodiments of the invention are described in detail.
The computer 120 also includes a hard disk drive 227 for reading from and writing to a hard disk (not shown), a magnetic disk drive 228 for reading from or writing to a removable magnetic disk 229 such as a floppy disk, and an optical disk drive 230 for reading from or writing to a removable optical disk 231 such as a CD-ROM, compact disk-read/write (CD/RW), DVD, or other optical media. The hard disk drive 227, magnetic disk drive 228, and optical disk drive 230 are connected to the system bus 223 by a hard disk drive interface 232, a magnetic disk drive interface 233, and an optical disk drive interface 234, respectively. Although the exemplary conventional computer 120 employs a ROM 224, a RAM 225, a hard disk drive 227, a removable magnetic disk 229, and a removable optical disk 231, other types of computer readable media also can be used in the exemplary conventional computer 120. For example, the computer readable media can include any apparatus that can contain, store, communicate, propagate, or transport data for use by or in connection with one or more components of the computer 120, including any electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system (or apparatus or device) or propagation medium, such as magnetic cassettes, flash memory cards, digital video disks, Bernoulli cartridges, and the like. The drives and their associated computer readable media can provide nonvolatile storage of computer-executable instructions, data structures, program modules, and other data for the computer 120.
A number of modules can be stored on the ROM 224, RAM 225, hard disk drive 227, magnetic disk 229, or optical disk 231, including an operating system 235, an e-mail client application 215, and application modules 237-238. Application modules 237-238 can include routines, sub-routines, programs, objects, components, data structures, etc., which perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. A user can read, send, and manage e-mail messages that reside on an e-mail server 110 using an e-mail client application 215.
A user can enter commands and information to the computer 120 through input devices, such as a keyboard 240 and a pointing device 242. The pointing device 242 can include a mouse, a trackball, an electronic pen that can be used in conjunction with an electronic tablet, or any other input device known to a person of ordinary skill in the art, such as a microphone, joystick, game pad, satellite dish, scanner, or the like. These and other input devices are often connected to the processing unit 221 through a serial port interface 246 that is coupled to the system bus 223, but can be connected by other interfaces, such as a parallel port, game port, a universal serial bus (USB), or the like. A display device 247, such as a monitor, also can be connected to system bus 223 by way of an interface, such as a video adapter 248. In addition to the display device 247, the computer 120 can include other peripheral output devices, such as speakers (not shown) and a printer 216.
The computer 120 is configured to operate in a networked environment using logical connections to one or more remote computers 130, e-mail servers 110, or web servers 150. While the remote computer 130 typically includes many of the elements described above relative to the computer 120, only a memory storage device 250 has been illustrated in
When used in a local area network “LAN” environment, the computer 120 is often connected to the “LAN” through a network interface or adapter 253. When used in a wide area network “WAN” environment, the computer 120 typically includes a modem 254 or other means for establishing communications over the “WAN”, such as the Internet. The modem 254, which can be internal or external, is connected to system bus 223 by means of a serial port interface 246.
In one exemplary embodiment, the status 313 of an e-mail message 302-309 provides whether an e-mail message has been opened by the e-mail user. The status index 314 of an e-mail message is based on the sender of the message and, more specifically, on the number of e-mail messages from that e-mail sender that an e-mail user has opened versus the number of e-mail messages from that e-mail sender that the e-mail user has not opened. In one exemplary embodiment, the status index 314 is calculated by dividing the number of opened messages from an e-mail sender by the total number of messages from that e-mail sender in the e-mail receiver's inbox 301, or received over a specified period of time. For example, referring to
In one exemplary embodiment of the present invention, e-mail users may order the e-mail messages in the e-mail message inbox 301 based on a priority. For example, a user could order the e-mail messages by the date 311, by e-mail sender 310, or by status index 314. The e-mail user may order the e-mails with highest priority e-mail messages displayed first or with lowest priority e-mail messages displayed first. For example,
E-mail users may also order messages using multiple prioritization mechanisms. For example, the status index 314 may be the primary prioritization mechanism and the date received 311 may be a secondary prioritization mechanism. In this case, the e-mail messages will first be grouped by status index 314. Then, the e-mail messages in each group will be ordered by date 311. Alternatively, if the date received 311 is the primary prioritization mechanism and the status index 314 is the secondary prioritization mechanism, the e-mail messages will first be grouped by date 311. Then, the e-mail messages in each group will be ordered by status index number 314.
Referring to
At step 420, a user selects a “Status Index” prioritization field 314 in an e-mail client application 215. In one exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the user may use a pointing device such as a mouse 242 to “click” on a column header reading “Status Index.”
At step 430, the e-mail client application 215 searches existing e-mail messages 302-308 and creates an index of the status 313 of messages from each e-mail sender 310 that an e-mail message 302-308 was received from. In one exemplary embodiment of the present invention, a default search parameter may be provided. For example, a parameter limiting the search to e-mail messages received in the last three months may be used by the e-mail client application 215.
At step 440, the e-mail client application 215 assigns a status index number 314 to each e-mail sender 310 that an e-mail message 302-308 was received from. The status index number 314 is based on the number of e-mail messages from that e-mail sender that have been received and opened versus the number of e-mail messages from that e-mail sender that have been received but not opened.
At step 450, a new e-mail message 309 is received at the e-mail server 110 addressed to the e-mail user.
At step 460, the e-mail client application 215 re-calculates the status index of the e-mail sender that sent the new e-mail. The e-mail client application 215 then places the new e-mail message 309 into the list of e-mail messages 302-309 in the e-mail message inbox 301 based on the status index 314 for the e-mail sender that sent the new e-mail message 309.
One of ordinary skill in the art would appreciate that the present invention provides methods and systems for prioritizing e-mail messages based on the status of existing e-mail messages. Specifically, the invention provides methods and systems for prioritizing e-mail messages based on the number of e-mail messages from e-mail senders that have been opened versus the number of e-mail messages from e-mail senders that have not been opened.
