Methods and systems for transmitting video messages to mobile communication devices

1. A video messaging system comprising:

a processor;

a content database that stores video content;

a user database that stores:

a user identifier associated with at least one user;

an identifier corresponding to a telecommunications carrier associated with a mobile phone of the at least one user;

an indicator indicating the messaging capability of the mobile phone of the at least one user;

a telephone number associated with the mobile phone of the at least one user;

computer executable instructions stored in a non-transitory computer readable memory storage that when executed by the processor is configured to:

provide for display on a user terminal a form via which a user can view a plurality of available videos from the content database, view an amount associated with sending the video, select a video to be sent as a message, specify a recipient for the video message, enter text to be sent to the recipient in association with the selected video, and instruct that the selected video and the text be sent as a message to the specified recipient;

receive and store in the non-transitory computer readable memory storage the user video selection, the recipient specification, and the text;

initiate the transmission of an approval request message to a mobile phone associated with the user using the phone number associated with the user mobile phone to address the approval request message, wherein the user can approve the sending of the video message to the recipient by taking an action in response to the approval request;

if the user approves sending of the video message within a specified period of time:

initiate the transmission of the video message and associated text to a mobile phone associated with the recipient;

identify the video message as being in an active state at least until a confirmation of receipt indication is received via a carrier associated with the recipient;

if a confirmation is received, store the confirmation in the non-transitory computer readable memory storage; and

if the user does not approve sending of the video message within the specified time period, initiating the cancellation of the transmission the video message to the recipient.

2. The system as defined in claim 1 , wherein the computer executable instructions are further configured to:

determine whether the recipient mobile phone is capable of receiving an MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) message;

if the recipient mobile phone is capable of receiving an MMS message, have the video message delivered to the recipient mobile phone via an MMS message; and

if the recipient mobile phone is not capable of receiving an MMS message, have access to the video message provided to the recipient mobile phone via a SMS (Short Message Service) WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) push message.

3. The system as defined in claim 2 , wherein the SMS WAP push message includes an option of connecting to a specified URL (Uniform Resource Locator) via a recipient mobile phone browser to access the video message.

4. The system as defined in claim 2 , wherein if the SMS WAP push message is to be used, the computer executable instructions are configured to create a corresponding WAP push object and transmit the WAP push object to a gateway for forwarding to the recipient mobile phone carrier.

5. The system as defined in claim 1 , wherein the computer executable instructions are further configured to provide the form via a Web page.

6. The system as defined in claim 1 , the system further comprising a plurality of geographically distributed server nodes configured to store and provide Web pages and widget code, and to cache video messages.

7. The system as defined in claim 1 , wherein the computer executable instructions are further configured to generate a hash code to identify the combination of user, recipient, and message identifiers.

8. The system as defined in claim 1 , wherein the computer executable instructions are further configured to:

receive an instruction from the user to transmit a second video message to a second recipient;

determine whether the user had previously approved the sending of at least one other video message to at least one recipient based on information stored in system memory; and

if the user had previously approved the sending of at least one other video message to at least one recipient, initiate the transmission of the second video message to the second recipient without the transmission of an approval request message to the mobile phone associated with the user.

9. The system as defined in claim 1 , wherein the computer executable instructions are further configured to determine how the video message is to be transmitted to the second recipient at least partly based on a mobile phone-type of the recipient and/or a carrier associated with the mobile phone of the recipient.