System and method for archiving and retrieving messages

1. A method comprising:

establishing by a computer an audience element comprising a first combination of addresses identified as recipient addresses for one message;

creating a first relationship between the audience element and the first combination of addresses;

determining whether a second combination of addresses identified as recipient addresses for another message matches the first combination of addresses;

creating a second relationship between the other message and the audience element in response to determining that the second combination of addresses matches the first combination of addresses; and

utilizing the first relationship and the second relationship to identify an association between the other message and a particular address from the first combination of addresses.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising normalizing the first combination of addresses.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising marking one or more addresses of the first combination of addresses to indicate primary, secondary, or tertiary recipients.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising creating a serialization of the first combination of addresses.

5. The method of claim 4 , further comprising hashing the serialization using an algorithm to create an audience identifier associated with the serialization.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the algorithm comprises MD5.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first combination of addresses comprises a plurality of e-mail addresses.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the audience element comprises addresses of primary, secondary, and tertiary recipients.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the audience element comprises only addresses of primary recipients.

10. A method, comprising:

establishing by a computer an audience element comprising a combination of addresses identified as recipient addresses for one message;

creating an audience identifier associated with the audience element;

determining whether the audience identifier matches an audience identifier already stored in a memory;

if the audience identifier does not match the audience identifier already stored in the memory:

storing the audience identifier in the memory; and

associating the audience element with the audience identifier; and

if the audience identifier is matches the audience identifier already stored in the memory:

associating the audience element with the audience identifier already stored in the memory.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the audience identifier comprises an MD5 hash.

12. The method of claim 10 , wherein the combination of addresses comprises a plurality of e-mail addresses.

13. The method of claim 10 , further comprising storing another message associated with the audience element.

14. The method of claim 10 , wherein the combination of addresses comprises addresses of each of a primary recipient, a secondary recipient, and a tertiary recipient.

15. The method of claim 10 , further comprising normalizing and serializing the audience element.

16. A system, comprising:

a memory operable to store one or more messages and one or more audiences; and

a processor operable to perform the steps of:

establishing an audience element comprising a first combination of addresses identified as recipient addresses for one message;

creating a first relationship between the audience element and the first combination of addresses;

determining whether a second combination of addresses identified as recipient addresses for another message matches the first combination of addresses;

creating a second relationship between the other message and the audience element in response to determining that the second combination of addresses matches the first combination of addresses; and

utilizing the first relationship and the second relationship to identify an association between the other message and a particular address from the first combination of addresses.

17. The system of claim 16 , wherein the processor is further operable to perform the step of creating a serialization of the first combination of addresses.

18. The system of claim 17 , wherein the processor is further operable to perform the step of hashing the serialization using an algorithm to create a hash associated with the serialization.

19. The system of claim 16 , wherein the audience element comprises addresses of primary, secondary, and tertiary recipients.

20. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising logic, the logic when executed by a computer operable to:

establish an audience element comprising a first combination of addresses identified as recipient addresses for one message;

create a first relationship between the audience element and the first combination of addresses;

determine whether a second combination of addresses identified as recipient addresses for another message is the same as the first combination of addresses;

create a second relationship between the other message and the audience element in response to determining that the second combination of addresses matches the first combination of addresses; and

utilize the first relationship and the second relationship to identify an association between the other message and a particular address from the first combination of addresses.