Facilitating content generation via messaging system interactions

Abstract

The following disclosure relates generally to techniques for generating useful content based on user interactions, such as by enabling users to submit questions to and otherwise interact with an answer-providing service. In some situations, one or more interfaces are provided to allow users to specify a variety of types of questions for the answer-providing service, such as via a GUI and/or using a messaging interface based on email or other types of electronic messages. When communications occur via electronic messages, the answer-providing service may in some situations generate and include unique tracking identifiers in electronic messages sent to users, so that the users can reply back to the messages in order to provide a command to the answer-providing service that includes a tracking identifier previously sent to the user and thus verify that the command is sent by someone with access to the electronic messages of the user.

1 - 46 . (canceled) 
     
     
         47 . A computer-implemented method, comprising:
 receiving, by a configured computing system, indications of multiple questions submitted by multiple users, each of the questions being submitted by one of the multiple users based on one or more electronic messages received from the one user;   for each of the questions, responding to the question by
 obtaining, by the configured computing system, one or more responses to the question from each of multiple users other than the user who supplied the question; and 
 identifying, by the configured computing system, at least some of the obtained responses to be used as an answer to the question; and 
 providing, by the configured computing system, the answer to the user who submitted the question as part of one or more electronic messages sent to the user, at least one of the electronic messages sent to the user including a tracking identifier associated with the user by the answer-providing service to enable the user to later send one or more additional electronic messages to the answer-providing service that include the tracking identifier for use by the answer-providing service in determining that the additional messages are from the user; and 
   receiving, by the configured computing system, from a user a reply message to an electronic message previously sent to the user as part of sending an answer to a question to the user, the reply message including the tracking identifier included in the previously sent electronic message and a command from the user that is not specific to the answer for which the electronic message was previously sent.   
     
     
         48 . The method of  claim 47  wherein at least some electronic messages used by users to submit questions are email messages and wherein a defined messaging interface specifies how one or more types of information for the question are to be indicated in an email message. 
     
     
         49 . The method of  claim 47  wherein a defined messaging interface for electronic messages used by users to submit questions includes an application programming interface (“API”) that specifies one or more types of information messages that may be submitted, and wherein at least some electronic messages used by users to submit questions are messages sent via the API. 
     
     
         50 . The method of  claim 47  wherein at least some electronic messages used by users to submit questions each include an indication of a question being submitted and additional information related to the question that is specified in a manner in accordance with a defined messaging interface. 
     
     
         51 . The method of  claim 50  wherein the additional information for each of at least some of the questions includes one or more tags for the question. 
     
     
         52 . The method of  claim 51  wherein the additional information for each of the at least some questions includes an indicated geographical location related to the question. 
     
     
         53 . The method of  claim 52  wherein the additional information for each of the at least some questions includes an indication of at least one of a desired service and a desired product to be acquired in the indicated geographical location for the question. 
     
     
         54 . The method of  claim 47  wherein the providing of the answer for one of the questions submitted via one or more electronic messages includes automatically generating the tracking identifier to be included in at least one of the those electronic messages such that the generated tracking identifier is unique. 
     
     
         55 . The method of  claim 47 , comprising:
 receiving from a user a second reply message to an electronic message previously sent to the user as part of sending an answer to a question to the user, the second reply message including the tracking identifier included in the previously sent electronic message, wherein the second reply message contains feedback from the user related to the answer for which the electronic message was previously sent; and   determining to use the feedback based at least in part on the second reply message including the tracking identifier included in the previously sent electronic message.   
     
     
         56 . The method of  claim 47  wherein at least some of the multiple questions submitted by the multiple users are each associated with an indication that the user who submitted the question has prepaid for the question submission, and wherein the command is an instruction to pre-pay for a specified number of future question submissions. 
     
     
         57 . The method of  claim 47  wherein the command from the user is an instruction to purchase an indicated item for the user. 
     
     
         58 . The method of  claim 47 , comprising determining to perform the command received from the user based on, after sending a confirmation request electronic message to the user that includes a second tracking identifier distinct from the tracking identifier included in the previously sent electronic message, receiving a confirmation reply message from the user to the sent confirmation request electronic message such that the confirmation reply message includes the second tracking identifier. 
     
     
         59 . The method of  claim 47  wherein each of the sent electronic messages has a unique tracking identifier. 
     
     
         60 . The method of  claim 47 , comprising verifying the reply message includes the tracking identifier included in the previously sent electronic message. 
     
     
         61 . A non-transitory computer-readable medium whose stored contents configure a computing system to perform a method, the method comprising:
 receiving an indication of a request supplied by a first user via one or more electronic messages;   generating a reply to the request based on one or more responses obtained from one or more users other than the first user;   sending the reply to the first user via one or more other electronic messages, at least one of the other electronic messages including a tracking identifier associated with the first user by the answer-providing service to enable the first user to later send one or more additional messages that include information based on the tracking identifier for use in determining that the additional messages are from the first user; and   after the automatic sending to the first user of the reply to the request, receiving from the first user a command message including the tracking identifier and a command unrelated to the reply to the request.   
     
     
         62 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of  claim 61  wherein the configured computing system performs the method on behalf of an answer-providing service, wherein the one or more electronic messages supplied by the first user are each email messages specified by the first user in accordance with a defined messaging interface of the answer-providing service, and wherein the automatic sending of the reply to the first user via one or more other electronic messages that include the tracking identifier associated with the first user includes automatically generating a new tracking identifier unique to the first user and associating the new tracking identifier with the first user. 
     
     
         63 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of  claim 61  wherein the computer-readable medium is a memory of the configured computing system and the contents are instructions that when executed program the configured computing system to perform the method. 
     
     
         64 . A system, comprising:
 one or more processors of one or more computing systems;   one or more modules that are configured to, when executed by at least one of the one or more processors,   respond to each of multiple questions that are each supplied by a requester via one or more electronic messages, by
 obtaining one or more responses to the question from one or more users; 
 generating an answer to the question based on at least one of the obtained responses; and 
 providing the answer to the requester who supplied the question as part of one or more electronic messages that include a generated tracking identifier associated with the requester for later use in one or more replies sent from the requester that include the tracking identifier; and 
   respond to an indication of a command not specific to a response to a previous question and supplied by a requester via a reply message, the responding including determining whether the reply message including the indication of the command also includes the tracking identifier included in a previously sent electronic message to the requester supplying the indication of the command.   
     
     
         65 . The system of  claim 64  wherein the system operates on behalf of an answer-providing service, wherein at least some of the requesters are users, wherein the one or more electronic messages supplied by the requesters are each email messages specified in accordance with a defined messaging interface of the answer-providing service, and wherein the providing of the answer to a requester for each of at least some of the questions includes generating a new tracking identifier unique to the requester and associating the new tracking identifier with the requester. 
     
     
         66 . The system of  claim 64  wherein the one or more modules each include software instructions for execution by the one or more processors of the system.