28. A computer program product stored in memory, the computer program product including programs for execution by a client computer system, the computer program product comprising: instructions for receiving a query from a requestor, the query having one or more query terms, and responding to receipt of the query, including: instructions for transmitting the query over a network from the client computer system to a conversation management system; instructions for receiving from the conversation management system a list of conversations that match the one or more query terms, each of the conversations in the list having a respective conversation identifier and at least one electronic message relevant to the query, and wherein each conversation comprises one or more messages sharing a common set of characteristics that meet first predefined criteria and at least one conversation of the generated list of conversations comprises two or more messages; and instructions for presenting at least a portion of the list of conversations to the requestor, each conversation listed in the presented portion of the list being represented as a single item, the presented portion of the list including a plurality of items, each representing a distinct conversation, at least one of which comprises a plurality of messages, wherein each item representing a conversation having a plurality of messages has an associated icon indicating the number of electronic messages in the conversation.
28. A computer program product stored in memory, the computer program product including programs for execution by a client computer system, the computer program product comprising: instructions for receiving a query from a requestor, the query having one or more query terms, and responding to receipt of the query, including: instructions for transmitting the query over a network from the client computer system to a conversation management system; instructions for receiving from the conversation management system a list of conversations that match the one or more query terms, each of the conversations in the list having a respective conversation identifier and at least one electronic message relevant to the query, and wherein each conversation comprises one or more messages sharing a common set of characteristics that meet first predefined criteria and at least one conversation of the generated list of conversations comprises two or more messages; and instructions for presenting at least a portion of the list of conversations to the requestor, each conversation listed in the presented portion of the list being represented as a single item, the presented portion of the list including a plurality of items, each representing a distinct conversation, at least one of which comprises a plurality of messages, wherein each item representing a conversation having a plurality of messages has an associated icon indicating the number of electronic messages in the conversation. 29. The computer program product of claim 28 , wherein the single item for a respective conversation in the presented portion of the list of conversations is generated so as to include a text string having a highlighted instance of at least one of the one or more query terms.