Methods and apparatus for extraction of content from an email or email threads for use in providing implicit profile attributes and content for recommendation engines

A computerized system for extracting content from an email, comprising:

• a computer processor running an email accumulation software application which is enabled to access stored user emails;
• an email account management module adapted to receive the stored user emails from the email accumulation software application;
• a self-learning module in communication with the email account management module for analyzing the user emails to determine at least one of user specific email thread patterns, user specific greetings, and user specific signatures;
• a storage bank for storing the user specific email thread patterns, the user specific greetings, and the user specific signatures together with a user identifier or as part of a user profile associated with a recommendation engine;
• and
• an email extraction module adapted for processing each of the emails, said processing comprising:
• removing any replied content from the email based on at least one of known delimiters for separating original and reply emails, known email thread patterns, and user specific email thread patterns;
• removing any signature content from the email based on at least one of generated signature patterns for the sender, known signature patterns, and user specific signatures;
• removing any greeting content from the email based on at least one of generated greeting patterns for the sender, known greeting patterns, and user specific greetings;
• removing any sent from content identifying a device or an email client from which the email was sent based on known sent from content;
• and
• outputting remaining email text for further processing;
• wherein said further processing comprises at least one of:
• analyzing the remaining email text for use in augmenting a sender's implicit profile;
• and analyzing the remaining email text for question or answer content on specific topics and storing the question and answer content in a recommendation engine database.