Method and apparatus for message notification via RSS feed

• US 20070282973A1
• Filed: 06/01/2006
• Published: 12/06/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 06/01/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: J2 Global, Inc.
• Original Assignee: J2 Global, Inc.
• Inventors: Chapman, George B., Warren, Orlando J.
• Application Number:
  US11/445,592
• Publication Number:
  US 20070282973A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/217
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/55 Push-based network services
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/537 Arrangements for indicating the presence of a recorded message , whereby the presence information might include a preview or summary of the message
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/0024 Services and arrangements where telephone services are combined with data services arrangements which combine a telephonic equipment and a computer H04M7/0012

Abstract

Methods of receiving audio transmissions over a telecommunication connection, extracting information about the transmissions, and publishing the information to an RSS feed are described and claimed. Systems and software using the methods are also described and claimed.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving a transmission via an audio telecommunication connection;

extracting information about the transmission; and

publishing the information to a syndication feed.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the syndication feed delivers items that conform to at least one of an RSS-1.0 format, an RSS-2.0 format, or an Atom format.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

storing data derived from the transmission in a mass storage system, the data to be accessible via a Uniform Resource Locator (“

URL”

) included with the information published to the syndication feed; and

transmitting the data to a client that requests the URL.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the transmission is a facsimile transmission.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

transmitting one of a reduced-size image of a page of the facsimile transmission or an excerpt from a page of the facsimile transmission with a syndication feed item.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the transmission is a voice message.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the audio telecommunication connection is a telephone connection.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the information includes at least one of a telephone number associated with the transmission, a station name associated with the transmission, or a number of pages associated with the transmission.

9. A system comprising:

a computer to receive a facsimile transmission for a subscriber;

a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (“

HTTP”

) server to exchange data with a plurality of systems via a distributed communication network;

a storage device to store facsimile data; and

syndication logic to produce an RSS item describing the facsimile transmission if an RSS client of the subscriber requests an RSS feed Uniform Resource Locator (“

URL”

).

10. The system of claim 9, further comprising:

a data exchanger to convert a transmission over a telephone network into a digital form for the computer.

11. The system of claim 9 wherein the RSS item comprises at least one of:

a telephone number of a sender of the facsimile transmission;

a station name of the sender of the facsimile transmission;

a time at which the facsimile transmission was received;

a number of pages received in the facsimile transmission; and

a Uniform Resource Locator (“

URL”

) to access the stored facsimile data.

12. The system of claim 9 wherein the RSS item conforms with an RSS-0.91 structure, an RSS-1.0 structure, an RSS-2.0 structure or an Atom structure.

13. The system of claim 9, further comprising:

an electronic mail server to transmit a notification of the facsimile transmission to an electronic mail address of the subscriber.

14. The system of claim 9 wherein the HTTP server is to receive a request for the RSS feed URL from a mobile telephone.

15. A machine-readable medium containing instructions to cause a programmable machine to perform operations comprising:

receiving a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (“

HTTP”

) request from a feedreader;

identifying a subscriber associated with the feedreader;

searching for stored telecommunication messages for the subscriber;

preparing a syndication item describing any stored telecommunication messages; and

transmitting the syndication item to the feedreader.

16. The machine-readable medium of claim 15, containing additional instructions to cause the programmable machine to perform operations comprising:

formatting the syndication item as an Extensible Markup Language (“

XML”

) document.

17. The machine-readable medium of claim 15 wherein identifying comprises receiving a phone number associated with the subscriber embedded in the HTTP request.

18. The machine-readable medium of claim 17 wherein a stored telecommunication message described in the syndication item was received at the telephone number.

19. The machine-readable medium of claim 15 wherein the searching and preparing operations are structured as a plug-in module for a web server.

20. The machine-readable medium of claim 15 wherein the searching and preparing operations are structured as a Common Gateway Interface (“

CGI”

) script to be executed by a web server.