Conversation-Based Mail

A new message communication paradigm based on conversations that provides an alternative to memo- and conference-based mail is described. A conversation-based message system groups messages into conversations, and orders messages within a conversation according to the context in which they were written. The message context relation leads to an efficient implementation of conversations in a distributed environment and supports a natural ordering of messages when viewed by the user. Experience with a prototype demonstrates the workability of conversation-based mail and suggests that conversations provide a powerful tool for message communication.