Instant messaging using a wireless interface

Claims

What is claimed is:

1. A method for facilitating instant messaging for a telephony user comprising: creating a call dialog; receiving, according to the call dialog, a command derived from an audio command provided by a telephony user, the command including a message meaning and at least one message characteristic; searching a profile that defines how the at least one message characteristic acts on said message meaning and affects how said message meaning is presented to a second user; creating an instant message having content based on the message meaning and the at least one message characteristic and whose appearance and content is affected at least in part by the at least one message characteristic; and sending the instant message to a second user via an instant messaging service.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein providing a profile comprises providing a profile that defines a personality and wherein said message meaning is presented, at least in part, according to said personality.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the profile includes a plurality of unique text associated with a plurality of possible message characteristics for a given message meaning and wherein the creating an instant message step forms the at least a portion of the instant message with a chosen one of the plurality of unique text associated with a chosen one of the plurality of possible message characteristics.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the audio command includes a second message characteristic, and wherein the second message characteristic relates to emotion and the creating step further comprises associating emotional indicia with text corresponding to the message meaning.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the emotional indicia is at least one of the group consisting of an emoticon, emphasis imparted in at least a portion of the text corresponding to the message meaning, and color imparted in at least a portion of the text corresponding to the message meaning.

6. The method of claim 2 wherein when the message is presented, at least in part, according to said personality, the message is presented by selecting text corresponding to the message meaning for said personality.

7. The method of claim 4 wherein the second message characteristic relates to a relative volume and the creating step further comprises selecting a text format for the instant message corresponding to the relative volume.

8. The method of claim 4 wherein second message characteristics of the group consisting of volume, and emotion are available to associate with the message meaning of the command and the message meaning is associated with one or more of the message characteristics.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein at least one message characteristic is predefined for the command and is associated with the message meaning of the command in the creating step.

10. The method of claim 1 further comprising: receiving an instant message from the second user via the instant messaging service; creating content capable of being converted to an audio message to deliver to the telephony user; and sending the content to the telephony user via an audio browser.

11. The method of claim 10 further comprising receiving and converting the content directed to the telephony user into an audible message and delivering the audible message to the telephony user.

12. The method of claim 1 further comprising sending an alert to the telephony user via at least one of the group consisting of calling, sending an email, sending a message via a short message service, and sending a page.

13. A system for facilitating instant messaging for a telephony user comprising: a communication interface for communicating with an instant messaging service and a device capable of communicating with the telephony user; and a control system associated with the communication interface and adapted to: creating a call dialog; receive, according to the call dialog, a command derived from an audio command provided by the telephony user, the command including a message meaning and at least one message characteristic; search a profile that defines how the at least one message characteristic acts on said message meaning and affects how said message meaning is presented to a second user; create an instant message based on the message meaning and the at least one message characteristic and whose appearance and content is affected at least in part by the at least one message characteristic; and send the instant message to a second user via the instant messaging service.

14. The system of claim 13 wherein the profile includes a plurality of unique text associated with a plurality of possible message characteristics for a given message meaning and wherein the control system is adapted to create the instant message by forming at least a portion of the instant message with a chosen one of the plurality of unique text associated with a chosen one of the plurality of possible message characteristics.

15. The system of claim 13 wherein the message characteristic relates to emotion and the control system is adapted to create the instant message by associating emotional indicia with text corresponding to the message meaning.

16. The system of claim 15 wherein the emotional indicia is one of the group consisting of an emoticon, emphasis imparted in at least a portion of the text corresponding to the message meaning, and color imparted in at least a portion of the text corresponding to the message meaning.

17. The system of claim 13 wherein the message characteristic relates to personality and the control system is further adapted to create the instant message by selecting text corresponding to the message meaning for a given personality.

18. The system of claim 13 wherein the message characteristic relates to a relative volume and the control system is further adapted to create the instant message by selecting a text format for the instant message corresponding to the relative volume.

19. The system of claim 13 wherein message characteristics of the group consisting of volume, personality, and emotion are available to associate with the message meaning of the command and the control system is further adapted to create the instant message by associating the message meaning with one or more of the message characteristics.

20. The system of claim 19 wherein at least one message characteristic is predefined for the command and the control system is further adapted to create the instant message by associating the message meaning with the at least one predefined message characteristic.

21. The system of claim 13 wherein the control system is further adapted to: receive an instant message from the second user via the instant messaging service; create content capable of being converted to an audio message to deliver to the telephony user; and send the content to the telephony user via an audio browser.

22. The system of claim 13 further comprising an audio browser adapted to convert content directed to the telephony user into an audible message and deliver the audible message to the telephony user via the audio browser.

23. The system of claim 13 wherein said control system is further adapted to send an alert to the telephony user via at least one of the group consisting of calling, sending an email, sending message via a short message service, and sending a page.

24. A computer readable medium with software facilitating instant messaging for a telephony user and comprising instructions for a computer to: create a call dialog; receive, according to the call dialog, a command derived from an audio command provided by the telephony user, the command including a message meaning and at least one characteristic; search a profile that defines how the at least one message characteristic acts on said message meaning and affects how said message meaning is presented to a second user; create an instant message based on the message meaning and the at least one message characteristic and whose appearance and content is affected at least in part by the at least one message characteristic; and send the instant message to a second user via an instant messaging service.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to facilitating communications between a telephony user and an on-line user, and in particular, relates to facilitating instant messaging between these users.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The rapid acceptance of the Internet has changed the way in which people communicate. A significant number of letters and telephone calls have been replaced with email messages. Although email is an effective communication medium, ongoing on-line communications are often hampered because of the extra steps necessary to view, reply, and send email messages. Further, email provides no way of knowing if the person with whom someone is communicating is on-line at that particular moment. With these deficiencies, instant messaging (IM) has gained great popularity over email to facilitate ongoing on-line communications.

Typically, IM allows users to form a list of people with whom they wish to communicate. This list is typically called a "buddy list," and most IM services allow users to communicate with anyone on their buddy list, assuming that the person is on-line at that given time. Generally, users will send an alert to those persons on their buddy list who are on-line prior to engaging in a conversation. Most IM services provide a small text window where two or more users can type messages that both users can instantly view. IM services not only allow users to send notes back and forth while on-line, they can also allow users to set up chat rooms to communicate with groups of users, and to share links to web sites as well as images, audio, and the like.

With the increasing popularity of IM, as well as email, users continue to develop shortcuts for conveying words, phrases, and emotions to make these text-based communications more efficient and fluent. These shortcuts may include the use of acronyms, abbreviations, symbols, or combinations thereof. Given the difficulty in communicating emotion with written communications, a growing set of accepted symbols for emotions often punctuates these text-based messages. For example, a :) or :(can easily convey whether a sender of a message is happy or sad, respectively.

Given the wide acceptance of IM, there is a need to support IM between traditional on-line users and traditional land-based or wireless telephony users, who are restricted to using voice to send messages and to receiving audible messages. Further, there is a need to maintain the integrity of IM by conveying emotion and like characters with the messages between the on-line and telephony users.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention allows telephony users and on-line users to communicate with one another using an instant messaging (IM) service. The on-line IM user will provide and receive textual messages, wherein the telephony user will provide and receive corresponding audible messages. These messages may convey emotion using associated emotional indicia, such as emoticons, or other emotional indicia, including the use of capitalization, emphasis, and the like. Emotional indicia provided in the text messages from the on-line IM user are audibly conveyed to the telephony user. Similarly, emotional indicia provided by the telephony user in the form of actual emotions or commands are provided in text to the on-line IM user.

In one configuration, an IM proxy server is used to act as a liaison between a traditional IM service supported through an IM proxy server and the telephony user. In essence, the IM server effectively treats the IM proxy server as a second on-line user. The IM proxy server interacts with an audio browser to communicate with the telephony user via a telephony network and act as a proxy on behalf of the telephony user for the IM server.

The audio browser effectively translates speech to text for messages directed to the on-line IM user and translates text to speech for messages received from the on-line user and directed to the telephony user. The IM proxy server interacts with the audio browser to receive text converted from audio from the telephony user and provides an equivalent instant message to the IM server for delivery to the on-line IM user.

Similarly, messages directed to the telephony user via a mobile terminal or the like and received by the IM server from the online IM user are forwarded to the IM proxy server. The IM proxy server will process the message to form a text-based message ready for conversion to an audio format. The processed message is sent to the audio browser, which converts the message to an audio format and delivers it to the mobile terminal. As such, the audio browser provides text-to-speech and speech-to-text conversion to facilitate communications between the IM proxy server and the mobile terminal. The IM proxy server translates text messages to and from other text messages in a manner consistent with instant messaging.

In operation, the audio browser will receive a message and convert audible commands within the message for processing by the IM proxy server. The commands will include a meaning and be associated with one or more characteristics. Notably, various characteristics may be sent with each message, or pre-established for all messages. Characteristics may include a relative volume for conveying the message; a type of personality, nationality, or ethnicity; and an emotion to associate with the meaning of the message.

The IM proxy server will receive the command derived from the audio message and create an instant message based on the message meaning and any associated characteristics. The instant message is then delivered to the online IM user via the IM server.

Those skilled in the art will appreciate the scope of the present invention and realize additional aspects thereof after reading the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments in association with the accompanying drawing figures.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING FIGURES

The accompanying drawing figures incorporated in and forming a part of this specification illustrate several aspects of the invention, and together with the description serve to explain the principles of the invention.

FIG. 1 depicts a communication environment sufficient to support a preferred embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a table providing an example phrase component profile according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a table providing an example phrase definition profile according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a table providing an example phrase selection profile according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a flow diagram for the basic operation of an instant messaging proxy server processing messages directed to an on-line user from a telephony user.

FIG. 6 is a flow diagram for the basic operation of an instant messaging proxy server processing messages directed to a telephony user from an on-line user.

FIG. 7 is a block representation of an instant messaging proxy server constr