Techniques for providing add-on services for an email system

Claim 3

The method of claim 1 wherein said performing said at least one of said add on services at said add-on service system comprises incorporating an electronic advertisement into said post add-on service email prior to said forwarding.

Claim 4

The method of claim 2 wherein said electronic advertisement is selected from the group consisting of an advertising banner, an audio file, and a video file.

Claim 5

The method of claim 2 , wherein the distributed computer network is the Internet.

Claim 6

An add-on service system configured to provide add-on services to email messages transferred via a distributed computer network, sadi add-on service system being configured to be coupled to a destination email system through said distributed computer network, said add-on service system comprising: a furst server configured to receive according to a SMPTP protocol, through said distributed computer network, an email message eventually destined for said destination email system, said email message including an address of said add-on service system and recipient identifier; a first server configured to receive according to a SMTP protocol, through said distributed computer network, an email message eventually destined for said destination email system, said email messages including an address of said add-on service system and recipient identifier; a first logic module, operatively coupled to receive said email message from said first server, for ascertaining whether a recipient of said email message subscribes to at lets one of said add-on service by consulting a user profile database; If said first logic module ascertains that said recipient of said email message subscribes to at least one of said add-on services, forwarding said email message to a relay point where a middleware module is implemented to form a post add-on service email message; and a second server, operatively coupled to receive said post add-on service email message from said middleware module, said second server being configured to forward said post add-on service email message to an email server of said destination email system using a SMTP protocol.

Claim 7

An add-on service system configured to provide add-on services to email messages transferred via a distributed computer network, sadi add-on service system being configured to be coupled to a destination email system through said distributed computer network, said add-on service system comprising: a furst server configured to receive according to a SMPTP protocol, through said distributed computer network, an email message eventually destined for said destination email system, said email message including an address of said add-on service system and recipient identifier; a first server configured to receive according to a SMTP protocol, through said distributed computer network, an email message eventually destined for said destination email system, said email messages including an address of said add-on service system and recipient identifier; a first logic module, operatively coupled to receive said email message from said first server, for ascertaining whether a recipient of said email message subscribes to at lets one of said add-on service by consulting a user profile database; If said first logic module ascertains that said recipient of said email message subscribes to at least one of said add-on services, forwarding said email message to a relay point where a middleware module is implemented to form a post add-on service email message; and a second server, operatively coupled to receive said post add-on service email message from said middleware module, said second server being configured to forward said post add-on service email message to an email server of said destination email system using a SMTP protocol.

Claim 8

The add-on service system of claim 5 further including an advertisement insertion module configured to incorporate an electronic advertisement as part of said post add-on service email.

Claim 9

The method of claim 1 wherein said rendering said post add-on service email message accessible, comprises allowing an email front end to access said email through said destination email system.

Claim 10

The method of claim 1 wherein said email server of said destination email system comprises an SMTP server.

Claim 11

The method of claim 1 wherein said destination email system is a legacy email system.

Claim 12

The method of claim 1 further comprising forwarding said email message from said destination email system to said add-on service, wherein said forwarding stores said email message in said destination email system, and further comprising rendering said email message accessible to said recipient if said add-on service system fails.

Claim 13

The method of claim 1 wherein said rendering said post add-on service email message accessible to said recipient comprises allowing an email front end to access said post add-on service email message through said destination email system.

Claim 14

The add-on service system of claim 5 wherein said server is and SMTP server and said second server is an encapsulation module.

Claim 15

The add-on service system of claim 12 wherein said encapsulation module is able to provide MIME encapsulation.

Claim 16

A method of claim 1 , further comprising: providing the recipient an option of selecting at least one add-on service; providing the recipient the choice of at least two vendors for said at least one add-on service; determining which add-on service has been selected by the recipient; determining which vendor has been selected by the recipient; and wherein the forwarding the email message to a relay point, comprises sending a first portion of the email message as an email message to the vendor selected by the recipient.