Systems and methods to facilitate searches of communication references

• US 8,396,054 B2
• Filed: 05/02/2008
• Issued: 03/12/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 05/03/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Thryv, Inc. (Mudrick Capital Management LP)
• Original Assignee: UTBK, LLC
• Inventors: Altberg, Ebbe, Faber, Scott, Hirson, Ron, Van Der Linden, Sean, Manca, Paul G.
• Primary Examiner(s): Jagannathan, Melanie
• Assistant Examiner(s): PATEL, PARTHKUMAR
• Application Number:
  US12/114,603
• Publication Number:
  US 20090323670A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,775 Days
• Field of Search: 370/351, 370/352, 370/450, 370/252, 705/37, 705/14.54, 705/14.47, 705/9, 705/36, 705/51, 709/227, 709/225, 709/203, 715/753, 713/201
• 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:

a memory; and

a processor coupled to at least the memory and configured to;

assign a communication reference to an advisor for distribution by the advisor in a document, the communication reference usable to request connections to the advisor for real time communications with the advisor, wherein the real time communications with the advisor comprise the advisor providing advice;

associate a keyword with the communication reference;

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

select, based at least in part on the bid price, the communication reference for presentation in response to a search related to the keyword, wherein the communication reference includes an indicator of availability of the advisor for the real time communications with the advisor at a time corresponding to the presentation and a price specified by the advisor for charging for real time communications with the advisor;

responsive to a request from a customer using the communication reference, the request being for a communication connection to the advisor, determine contact information of the advisor based on the communication reference;

connect the customer to the advisor for the real time communications with the advisor, using the contact information determined based on the communication reference;

determine whether the request from the customer is received via a presentation of the communication reference as a result of the search; and

charge the advisor a fee based on the bid price per connecting, based at least in part on the communication reference, the customer to the advisor for the real time communications with the advisor, 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 from the customer is received as a result of a presentation of the communication reference in the document distributed by the advisor.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor is further configured to:

establish a first voice over Internet protocol connection to connect to the customer using the communication reference;

establish a second voice over Internet protocol connection to connect to the advisor using the contact information of the advisor; and

bridge the first and second voice over Internet protocol connections to connect the customer and the advisor.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor is further configured to:

determine an address of the document in response to the communication reference being selected from the document 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, using a computing device, a communication reference to an advisor for distribution by the advisor in a document, the communication reference usable to request connections to the advisor for real time communications with the advisor, wherein the real time communications with the advisor comprise the advisor providing advice;

associating a keyword with the communication reference;

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

selecting, based at least in part on the bid price, the communication reference for presentation in response to a search related to the keyword, wherein the communication reference includes an indicator of availability of the advisor for the real time communications with the advisor at a time corresponding to the presentation and a price specified by the advisor for charging for real time communications with the advisor;

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

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

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

charging the advisor a fee based on the bid price per connecting, based at least in part on the communication reference, the customer to the advisor for the real time communications with the advisor, 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 from the customer is received as a result of a presentation of the communication reference in the document distributed by the advisor.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

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

6. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

charging the customer on behalf of the advisor for services delivered by the advisor consequent to the connecting the customer to the advisor for real time communications with the advisor.

7. The method of claim 4, wherein the communication reference comprises a telephone number of a connection provider, a session initiation protocol uniform resource identifier, or a voice over Internet protocol user identifier of the connection provider.

8. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

a connection provider establishing a first voice over Internet protocol connection to connect to the customer using the communication reference;

the connection provider establishing a second voice over Internet connection to connect to the advisor using the contact information of the advisor; and

bridging the first and second voice over Internet protocol connections to connect the customer and the advisor.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the bridging of the first and second voice over Internet protocol connections comprises establishing a media connection that does not go through the connection provider to connect the customer and the advisor for telephone communications.

10. The method of claim 4, wherein the document comprises a business card.

11. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

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

12. The method of claim 4, wherein the indicator of availability is based on a scheduled time period.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the information to present the communication reference further includes a link to the document distributed by the advisor.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

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

wherein the link comprises a reference to the address of the document.

15. The method of claim 4, wherein the communication reference is further selected according to a rate of successful connections to the advisor among connection requests.

16. The method of claim 4, wherein the document comprises an email from the advisor.

17. The method of claim 4, wherein the document comprises a blog of the advisor.

18. A tangible non-transitory machine-readable medium, storing instructions that, when executed by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform a method, the method comprising:

assigning a communication reference to an advisor for distribution by the advisor in a document, the communication reference usable to request connections to the advisor for real time communications with the advisor, wherein the real time communications with the advisor comprise the advisor providing advice;

associating a keyword with the communication reference;

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

selecting, based at least in part on the bid price, the communication references for presentation in response to a search related to the keyword, wherein the communication reference includes an indicator of availability of the advisor for the real time communications with the advisor at a time corresponding to the presentation and a price specified by the advisor for charging for the real time communications with the advisor;

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

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

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

charging the advisor a fee based on the bid price per connecting, based at least in part on the communication reference, the customer to the advisor for the real time communications with the advisor, 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 from the customer is received as a result of a presentation of the communication reference in the document distributed by the advisor.