Patent ID: 8706819

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving, at a recipient device and from a notification server, a notification that an electronic mail message has been sent to the recipient device by a sending device, the notification being separate from and corresponding to the electronic mail message and received by the recipient device before the recipient device receives the electronic mail message, wherein the notification comprises: a first data field containing data that functions to identify the electronic mail message, a second data field containing data that represents an identity of a sender of the electronic mail message, and a third data field containing data indicating that the sender of the electronic mail message is available at a voicemail system, a peer-to-peer system, or a computer other than the sending device; determining whether a present delay time of the electronic mail message is greater than a predetermined delay threshold, the present delay time beginning when the notification is received by the recipient device; when the present delay time is greater than the predetermined delay threshold, after the notification is received by the recipient device, and before the electronic mail message is received by the recipient device: prompting a user of the recipient device to determine whether to contact the sender using the voicemail system, the peer-to-peer system, or the computer other than the sending device that is indicated by the third data field of the notification, and when the user indicates that the sender is to be contacted, initiating communication with the sender using the voicemail system, the peer-to-peer system, or the computer other than the sending device that is indicated by the third data field of the notification; collecting delay information for the electronic mail message and other electronic mail messages; and conveying the delay information to the notification server, wherein the notification server is configured to aggregate the delay information to determine historical delays existing along various paths taken by the electronic mail message and the other electronic mail messages, the historical delays reflecting at least one of: computed rates of delayed messages along the various paths, or counts of numbers of the delayed messages along the various paths.