Method and system of tagging email and providing tag clouds

Abstract

A system and method is provided for tracking and/or organizing email and, in particular, a system and method for tagging email in Web 2.0 applications and using the tags in tag clouds is provided. The system includes a computing system that has first program instructions to generate tag clouds having tags linked to associated emails in a collaborative application. A computer readable media stores the first program instructions and a central processing unit executes the first program instructions.

1 . A computer system comprising:
 first program instructions to generate tag clouds having tags linked to associated emails in a collaborative application;   a computer readable media which stores the first program instructions; and   a central processing unit to execute the first program instructions.   
   
   
       2 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the collaborative application is a Web 2.0 application. 
   
   
       3 . The system of  claim 1 , further comprising second program instructions to enable an email sender, email recipient and/or administrator of the collaborative application to select authorized users that can access the emails and provide one or more descriptors that are tags to the emails. 
   
   
       4 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the and emails are provided in a central location accessible to authorized users. 
   
   
       5 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the tag clouds are generated in real-time, and an appearance of one or more words within the tag clouds change each time an authorized user tags an email with a descriptive word. 
   
   
       6 . The system of  claim 1 , further comprising third program instructions to enable an authorized user to select a tag and be hyperlinked to one or more emails associated with the selected tag. 
   
   
       7 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the first program instructions enable a user to visually distinguish between emails. 
   
   
       8 . The system of  claim 1 , further comprising fourth program instructions to filter the tag clouds. 
   
   
       9 . The system of  claim 8 , wherein the filter removes tags below a predefined threshold or provided by certain users from the tag cloud. 
   
   
       10 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the first program instructions enable authorized users to at least one add to, delete from, and edit the tag clouds. 
   
   
       11 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the tag clouds present an email recipient with tags based on their importance or popularity within an online community. 
   
   
       12 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the first program instructions is at least one of maintained, deployed, created and supported on a computing infrastructure by a service provider. 
   
   
       13 . A method for generating tag clouds for emails stored in a central location and accessible to a collaborative community, comprising generating the tag clouds from one or more descriptors provided by authorized users having access to a select group of the emails, the descriptors being associated with tags that are linked to the emails. 
   
   
       14 . The method of  claim 13 , wherein the steps of  claim 13  are operable on a computer infrastructure which includes software, hardware or a combination of software and hardware. 
   
   
       15 . The method of  claim 14 , wherein the computer infrastructure is at least one maintained, deployed, created and supported by a service provider. 
   
   
       16 . The method of  claim 14 , wherein the computer infrastructure is operable to enable an email sender, email recipient and/or administrator of a collaborative application to select the authorized users that can access the emails and provide one or more descriptors that are tags to the emails. 
   
   
       17 . The method of  claim 14 , wherein the computer infrastructure is operable to generate the tag clouds in real-time. 
   
   
       18 . The method of  claim 14 , wherein the computer infrastructure is operable to create a hyperlink from one or more tags in the tag cloud to one or more emails associated with the one more tags. 
   
   
       19 . The method of  claim 14 , wherein the computer infrastructure is operable to filter the tag clouds. 
   
   
       20 . A computer program product for generating tag clouds having tags linked to email, the computer program product comprising:
 a computer readable medium;   first program instructions to provide authorization to selected users to review emails in a central location;   second program instructions to generate tags from descriptive words describing content in the emails and place the tags into the tag clouds;   third program instructions to hyperlink the tags to selected ones of the emails; and   fourth program instructions to filter the tag clouds,   wherein the first, second, third and fourth program instructions are stored on the computer readable media.