This application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. application
Ser. No. 10/667,103, filed
Sep. 17, 2003, which claims the benefit of: Provisional Application No. 60/411,836, filed
Sep. 18, 2002; Provisional Application No. 60/422,293, filed Oct. 30, 2002; Provisional Application No. 60/457,407, filed Mar. 25, 2003; Provisional Application No. 60/478,212, filed Jun. 12, 2003; and Provisional Application No. 60/480,076, filed Jun. 20, 2003, the disclosures of which are all incorporated by reference herein.
BACKGROUND
The present invention
relates generally to e-mail messages sent over a telecommunications
network, and more specifically to the enhancement of e-mail messages to
provide a preview mechanism, whereby senders of e-mail may provide
special customized preview content, such as graphical messages in
addition to the e-mail content.
E-mail is regarded as the Internet's first and one of
its biggest applications. In 2000, International Data Corp. estimated
that the average daily volume of e-mail around the world was about ten
billion and will explode to thirty-five billion by
2005.
Companies online and offline are finding that e-mails are a very
effective and low-cost method to communicate with their customers.
Unfortunately, unsolicited e-mail (SPAM or UCE) has become a big
problem, and the pervasiveness of SPAM has diluted the power and
effectiveness of e-mail as a means to attract, communicate with and keep
customers.
Recipients of legitimate e-mail often find it
difficult to sort through their e-mail messages and differentiate
legitimate or commercial e-mail from e-mail that is SPAM or junk. The
subject line often does not offer sufficient description of the content
to adequately describe the e-mail or to entice the recipient to open it.
As a result, many recipients routinely delete e-mails they are unable
to identify, assuming the e-mails to be unwanted SPAM. This creates
difficulties for legitimate commercial e-mail senders.
Existing e-mail implementations lack the flexibility of
a creative and attractive physical “envelop” as afforded by postal mail
to entice recipients to open or read the associated message. For
example, envelopes of direct postal mail advertisers often contain
colorful fonts and pictures to attract the user's curiosity, and
catalogs also have attractive covers to give the recipients an
indication of the contents. An e-mail with a subject line touting a sale
on “Sears' Apostrophe” line may not mean much to recipients unfamiliar
with the Apostrophe brand, whereas in a physical Sears' catalog examples
of the Apostrophe line's products may be prominently displayed,
prompting recipients to open and browse through the catalog.
There have been only a few examples of technology
enhancements that help promotions stand out in the e-mail inbox of
users. An enhancement might be in the form of a unique icon identifying
the promotion as legitimate. FIG. 8
a shows
an example of an MSN Featured Offers promotions e-mail sent to users of
Hotmail by partners of MSN. Certain promotional e-mails
803 may have a different icon than an ordinary e-mail
802. FIG. 8
b shows an example of Greenmail.com where users are shown a small graphic
812
to entice the user to open the associated message. However Greenmail's
promotional messages are not e-mail based. Users set up an account at
Greenmail and advertising messages are inserted to the users' accounts
by Greenmail. Also, Greenmail's static overlay graphical approach may
clutter the listing of promotions in the user's promotional folder and
limit the space on the screen for listing of messages.
Microsoft Outlook (FIG. 8
c) has a static preview window
182that shows a portion of the body of the e-mail, as shown in 821.
However, this often does not help a recipient understand what the
e-mail is about, especially if the body of the e-mail is large. The
recipient may still be required to scroll in the preview window and scan
the e-mail to understand its contents. Also, the Outlook preview window
may limit the space allocated to the listing of an e-mail and make
reading a long list of e-mail very tedious.
It is desirable to provide e-mail methods and systems
that avoid the foregoing difficulties and address these and other known
problems with current e-mail advertising approaches, and it is to these
ends that the present invention is directed.
