Advanced contact identification system
View Patent ↗A system and method of advanced identification information to be created and distributed to users of wireless communication devices, such as mobile phones. Subscribers can define their own personas as collections of information which define the users. Subscribers can then publish their persona(s) to their friends' and associates' mobile phones, and update the others' address books with the subscriber's contact information. Users can specify different personas to be presented to different users.
1. A computer-implemented method of providing an advanced caller identification service programmed in a memory of a device, comprising:
maintaining in the device a store of subscriber persona information provided by users, the persona information identifying a user to other users;
pushing persona information to a group of others based on an established relationship between subscribers, the group including a first subscriber having a phone and a second subscriber; and
controlling the first subscriber's phone based on the second subscriber's persona information prior to establishing a communication link between the first subscriber and the second subscriber, wherein the controlling of the first subscriber's phone is performed by a client application on the first subscriber's phone, and controlling comprises one of:
synchronizing persona information stored in a memory on the first subscriber's phone with the store of subscriber persona information in the memory of the device; and
blocking an incoming call to the first subscriber's phone from the second subscriber's phone to automatically populate an address book on the first subscriber's phone with public information regarding the second subscriber.
2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 wherein the method further includes the step of distributing client application to wireless devices to display persona information.
3. The computer-implemented of claim 1 further including the step of charging a fee for said method.
4. The computer-implemented of claim 1 further including the step of establishing subscriber accounts for subscribers and receiving at least one persona for a subscriber.
5. The computer-implemented of claim 1 further including the step of establishing links between subscribers who have established personas and distributing personas based on said link.
6. The computer-implemented of claim 1 wherein the method further includes the step of providing at least one default persona.
7. The computer-implemented of claim 1 wherein the method further includes receiving persona information including at least one of the following: a user name, user email addresses, phone numbers, physical addresses, birthday, instant messenger user identifiers, a movie; a ringtone; an image.
8. The computer-implemented of claim 1 wherein the persona information includes location information.
9. The computer-implemented of claim 8 wherein the location information includes GPS information.
10. The computer-implemented of claim 8 wherein the location information includes a user selectable granularity.
11. The computer-implemented of claim 8 further including the step of distributing a client application interpreting persona information.
12. A computer-implemented method of providing an advanced caller identification service, comprising:
maintaining in a device a store of subscriber persona information provided by users, the persona information identifying the user to other users;
pushing the persona information to the others based on an established relationship between subscribers, the group including a calling party and a called party;
a client application on the calling party's phone displaying an alert on the calling party's phone when the calling party attempts to place a call to the called party's phone during the period of time that is included as part of the called party's persona information that is locally stored on the calling party's phone, the period of time indicating that the called party does not accept calls; and
a client application on the called party's phone controlling the called party's phone based on the calling party's persona information prior to establishing a communication link between the called party and the calling party, wherein controlling comprises one of:
synchronizing persona information stored in a memory on the called party's phone with the store of subscriber persona information of the device; and
blocking an incoming call to the called party's phone from the calling party's phone to automatically populate an address book on the called party's phone with information regarding the calling party.
13. The computer-implemented method of claim 12 , further comprising receiving, by the calling party's phone, a message that the call to the user's phone was blocked and the client application on the calling party's phone performing one of: terminating the attempted call to the user's phone and displaying, on the calling party's phone, the received message that the call to the user's phone was blocked.