Systems and Methods to Facilitate Searches of Communication References

• US 20090323670A1
• Filed: 05/02/2008
• Published: 12/31/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 05/03/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Thryv, Inc. (Mudrick Capital Management LP)
• Original Assignee: UTBK, Inc.
• Inventors: HIRSON, Ron, FABER, Scott, ALTBERG, Ebbe, MANCA, Paul G., VAN DER LINDEN, Sean
• Granted Patent: US 8,396,054 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/352
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/10 Services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/6418 Hybrid transport
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/09 Third party charged communications

Abstract

Methods and apparatuses to facilitate searches of communication references for real time communication connections. One embodiment includes: one or more web servers to assign a communication reference to an advisor for distribution by the advisor in one or more documents, to associate at least one keyword with the communication reference, to receive from the advisor a bid price on the keyword associated with the communication reference, and to present the communication reference selected based at least in part on the bid price in response to a search related to the keyword; a session border controller to interface with a packet switched network; and one or more telecommunication servers to determine contact information of the advisor based on the communication reference used by a customer to request a communication connection to the advisor, and to connect the customer to the advisor for real time communications using the determined contact information.

Claims

1. A system, comprising:

one or more web servers to assign a communication reference to an advisor for distribution by the advisor in one or more documents, to associate at least one keyword with the communication reference, to receive from the advisor a bid price on the keyword associated with the communication reference, and to present the communication reference selected based at least in part on the bid price in response to a search related to the keyword;

a session border controller to interface with a packet switched network; and

one or more telecommunication servers coupled to the session border controller and the one or more web servers to determine contact information of the advisor based on the communication reference used by a customer to request a communication connection to the advisor, and to connect the customer to the advisor for real time communications using the contact information determined based on the communication reference.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more telecommunication servers are to establish a first Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) connection to connect to the customer using the communication reference, establish a second Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) connection to connect to the advisor using the contact information of the advisor and to bridge the first and second VoIP connections to connect the customer and the advisor.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the one or more web servers are to further determine an address of the one or more documents in response to the communication reference being selected from the one or more documents distributed by the advisor and to present a link to the address with the communication reference as a result of the search.

4. A method, comprising:

assigning a communication reference to an advisor for distribution by the advisor in one or more documents, the communication reference to be used by customers of the advisor to request for connections to the advisor for real time communications with the customers of the advisor;

associating at least one keyword with the communication reference;

receiving from the advisor a bid price on the keyword associated with the communication reference; and

selecting, based at least in part on the bid price, the communication reference for presentation in response to a search related to the keyword.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

responsive to a request received via the communication reference from a customer for a communication connection to the advisor, determining contact information of the advisor based on the communication reference; and

connecting the customer to the advisor for real time communications using the contact information determined based on the communication reference.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

determining whether the request is received via a presentation of the communication reference as a result of the search;

charging the advisor a fee based on the bid price per connecting the customer to the advisor for real time communications via the communication reference, in response to a determination that the request is received as a result of the search;

wherein the advisor is not charged the fee when the request is received as a result of a presentation of the communication reference in the one or more documents distributed by the advisor.

7. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

charging the advisor a fee based on the bid price per connecting the customer to the advisor for real time communications via the communication reference.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

determining the fee based on the bid price and a bid price on the keyword by a competitor of the advisor.

9. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

charging the customer on behalf of the advisor for services delivered by the advisor over a connection established between the customer and the advisor via the communication reference assigned to the advisor.

10. The method of claim 4, wherein the communication reference comprises a telephone number of a connection provider, a session initiation protocol (SIP) uniform resource identifier (URI), or a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) user identifier of the connection provider.

11. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

a connection provider establishing a first Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) connection to connect to the customer using the communication reference;

the connection provider determining contact information of the advisor based on the communication reference used to establish the first VoIP connection;

the connection provider establishing a second Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) connection to connect to the advisor using the contact information of the advisor; and

bridging the first and second VoIP connections to connect the customer and the advisor.

12. The method of claim 7, wherein the bridging of the first and second VoIP connections comprises establishing a media connection that does not go through the connection provider to connect the customer and the advisor for telephone communications.

13. The method of claim 4, wherein the one or more documents includes a business card, an email from the advisor, a blog of the advisor, or a web home page of the advisor.

14. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

providing information to present the communication reference in a document showing a result of the search.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the information to present the communication reference includes an indicator of availability of the advisor for real time communications with customers at a time the information is provided and a price specified by the advisor for charging customers for real time communications with the advisor.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the indicator of availability is based on a scheduled time period.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the information to present the communication reference further includes a link to the one or more documents distributed by the advisor.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising:

responsive to the communication reference in the one or more documents being selected to request for a communication connection with the advisor, associating the communication reference with an address of the one or more documents;

wherein the link comprises a reference to the address of the one or more documents.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the communication reference is further selected according to an average communication time duration per connection established via the communication reference, an average fee charged by the advisor per connection established via the communication reference, a rate of repeated communication requests, or a rate of success connections to the advisor among connection requests.

20. A machine readable media embodying instructions, the instructions causing a machine to perform a method, the method comprising:

assigning a communication reference to an advisor for distribution by the advisor in one or more documents, the communication reference to be used by customers of the advisor to request for connections to the advisor for real time communications with the customers of the advisor;

associating at least one keyword with the communication reference;

receiving from the advisor a bid price on the keyword associated with the communication reference; and

selecting, based at least in part on the bid price, the communication reference for presentation in response to a search related to the keyword.