Computer-Implemented, User-Controlled Method of Automatically Organizing, Storing, and Sharing Personal Information

A computer-implemented infrastructure providing a consistent graphical user interface supporting user-controlled organizing, storing, accessing and sharing of heterogeneous personal information of a specific user, the infrastructure using computer processes executed by a server system, the computer processes comprising:

• receiving a set of items of information from a computing device operated on behalf of the specific user, wherein receiving the set of items of information includes receiving information selected from the group consisting of (i) a digital file defining a set of images, (ii) a digital file defining a document, (iii) external account information of the specific user, (iv) textual information provided by manual input, (v) a digital file defining a video recording, (vi) a digital file defining an audio recording, (vii) digital data associated with communication across an API, and combinations thereof;
• for each item of information in the received set of items, obtaining, as a result of parsing the received set of items, new information including an information type and a set of data fields pertinent to the information type;
• using the new information, and other user information stored in association with an internal account of the specific user, to produce derived information selected from the group consisting of contact information, event information, inferred information, and relationships between the new information and the other user information and combinations of any of the foregoing;
• wherein:
• (a) the derived information further includes a set of contextual categories pertinent to components of the new information and the derived information, a contextual category being assigned to a component based on specific attributes of the component, the contextual categories being assigned in accordance with a taxonomy that provides a unifying context for similar components of information, the taxonomy being hierarchically arranged in a manner wherein a child contextual category can have a plurality of parent contextual categories;
• and
• (b) information type definitions are stored in a taxonomy database;
• storing, with respect to each item of information, the new information and the derived information, in a storage system in communication with the server system, and associating such stored item of information with an internal account of the specific user and with the corresponding information type and set of data fields and causing the stored items of information to be made accessible through the graphical user interface.