System and method for customizing electronic messages

A non-transitory computer-readable medium encoded with processing instructions for implementing a method, performed by a computer, for customizing electronic messages, the method comprising:

• providing a plug-in to a desktop electronic mail message program;
• executing programming instructions from the plug-in to generate a virtual toolbar, independent of a native toolbar of the electronic mail message program, for display within the electronic mail message program, the virtual toolbar including at least one virtual button for selecting content including graphics for inclusion in an electronic mail message, at least a portion of the content being downloadable from a remote server, and the at least one virtual button being associated with at least one item or category of available content, wherein the virtual tool bar has at least five or more virtual buttons, where a title on the virtual button is changeable from time to time by a content server in communication with the device with the resident electronic mail message program without initiation of any commands by the user the device, and where upon selection of a first virtual button, the installed plug-in retrieves a listing of content associated with the selected first virtual button from the content server and displays the available selections to the user of the device, and the displayed listing of content is retrievable by the installed plug-in when selected by the user of the device.

A computer-implementable method for allowing customization of electronic mail messages, comprising:

• receiving executable programming code for including a virtual toolbar in an electronic mail message program of a user terminal, the executable programming code for displaying the virtual toolbar within a window of the electronic mail message program, separate from a native toolbar;
• and
• receiving, from a user, a selection of a virtual button of the virtual toolbar, the selected virtual button associated with selectable content including graphics for inclusion in an electronic message generated by the user from the electronic message program, at least a portion of the content being downloadable from a remote server, and the at least one virtual button being associated with at least one item or category of available content, wherein the virtual tool bar has at least five or more virtual buttons, where a title on the virtual button is changeable from time to time by a content server in communication with the device with the resident electronic mail message program without initiation of any commands by the user the device, and where upon selection of a first virtual button, the installed plug-in retrieves a listing of content associated with the selected first virtual button from the content server and displays the available selections to the user of the device, and the displayed listing of content is retrievable by the installed plug-in when selected by the user of the device.