METHODS AND APPARATUSES FOR AUDIO ADVERTISEMENTS

1 . A method, comprising:

providing an advertisement, on behalf of a party, to a customer over a real time communication channel that is capable of audio transmission;

connecting the customer to the party according to a response to the advertisement; and

charging for the advertisement according to a count of communication leads connected to the party.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein at least a portion of the advertisement is provided to the customer in audio.

3 . The method of claim 2 , wherein the advertisement is charged for according to a price per communication lead connected to the party specified by the party, a price per subscription time period, a price per presentation of the advertisement, or a price per proxy of communication lead.

4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the real time communication channel over which the advertisement is provided to the customer comprises a telephone connection.

5 . The method of claim 4 , wherein the telephone connection is at least partially via a packet switched network.

6 . The method of claim 4 , wherein the telephone connection to the customer is via a telephone-based service provider.

7 . The method of claim 6 , wherein the telephone-based service provider provides directory service.

8 . The method of claim 1 , wherein said providing the advertisement comprises providing the advertisement to a partner via an application programming interface (API) in an audio format; and the partner presents the advertisement to the customer.

9 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

assigning a reference to the party, the reference being embedded in the advertisement;

wherein said connecting the customer to the party comprises connecting the customer to the party via the reference for real time communications.

10 . The method of claim 9 , wherein the reference comprises a telephone number.

11 . The method of claim 10 , further comprising:

providing the telephone number to the customer via a text message.

12 . The method of claim 11 , wherein the text message is sent via a short message service (SMS).

13 . The method of claim 1 , wherein said providing the advertisement comprises providing the advertisement via a telephone based directory.

14 . The method of claim 13 , further comprising:

selecting the advertisement via cross selling or pitch switching based on a directory assistance request received from the customer.

15 . The method of claim 13 , further comprising:

monitoring a conversation between the customer and the telephone based directory to determine an opportunity for advertisement; and

selecting an appropriate advertisement based on the monitored conversation.

16 . The method of claim 1 , wherein said selecting further comprises selecting based at least in part on price bid for communication leads and yield of advertisements.

17 . The method of claim 1 , wherein said providing the advertisement comprises providing the advertisement via an interactive voice response (IVR) system, a human operator, a radio broadcasting system, a television system, a voice portal, a text-to-speech synthesizer, a video portal, or interactive television.

18 . The method of claim 1 , wherein said connecting the customer to the party comprises connecting the real time communication channel to the party to connect the customer and the party; and the response is received from the customer via a speech recognition system.

19 . A machine readable medium containing instructions which when executed on a data processing system cause the system to perform a method, comprising:

providing an advertisement, on behalf of a party, to a customer over a real time communication channel that is capable of audio transmission;

connecting the customer to the party according to a response to the advertisement; and

charging for the advertisement according to a count of communication leads connected to the party.

20 . A data processing system, comprising:

means for providing an advertisement, on behalf of a party, to a customer over a real time communication channel that is capable of audio transmission;

means for connecting the customer to the party according to a response to the advertisement; and

means for charging for the advertisement according to a count of communication leads connected to the party.