Patent ID: 8001092

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: a processor; and a usage condition displaying unit, wherein the apparatus analyzes and displays a usage condition that corresponds to a piece of information which was transmitted within a mailing list to be evaluated, and indicates how the piece of information is used outside the mailing list, the processor includes a usage condition collecting unit that acquires usage condition information as to each usage condition and stores said usage condition information in a memory, the usage condition displaying unit displays the usage conditions based on the usage condition information, the usage condition displaying unit expresses, as nodes, (a) the mailing list to be evaluated, (b) transmitting sources that transmit the information within the mailing list to be evaluated, and (c) individual communicating units that each receive the information via the mailing list and individually communicate with a corresponding one of the transmitting sources, the usage condition displaying unit displays the individual communications as the usage conditions by drawing first arcs from the node of each individual communicating unit to the node of the corresponding one of the transmitting sources, each first arc is displayed as an arrow, the usage conditions collecting unit calculates usage frequencies at which the information is used outside the mailing list, to display the usage frequencies using display attributes of the first arcs, and the mailing list is a particular network having a boundary that is specified at a predetermined point of time; wherein the usage condition collection unit acquires usage condition information related to communications transmitted by the transmitting sources outside of the mailing list, and acquires usage condition information related to communications transmitted by sources other than the transmitting sources outside of the mailing list; wherein the usage frequencies comprise a frequency of keywords contained in information transmitted outside of the mailing list.