UTILIZING EXTRA TEXT MESSAGE SPACE
First Claim
1. In a mobile communications environment, a method comprising, determining that free space is available in a text message, and encoding metadata into the free space for sending with text of the text message.
2 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Described is a technology that uses the unused (free) space (that is not occupied by text of a text message) to encode metadata into the text message. The metadata may correspond to an advertisement, a sender'"'"'s mood, a sender'"'"'s location, and the like. The inclusion of an advertisement can help reduce the user'"'"'s cost, while the inclusion of other types of data can reduce the number of messages that need to be sent, without requiring typing in the information. The receiving device processes the metadata to determine an action to take, such as to display an advertisement identified in the metadata, along with the text. The advertisement content may have been previously downloaded in anticipation of its later display.
31 Citations
20 Claims
- 1. In a mobile communications environment, a method comprising, determining that free space is available in a text message, and encoding metadata into the free space for sending with text of the text message.
- 9. In device in a communications environment that is configured to transmit text messages, a system comprising, a text messaging program that determines that free space is available in a text message, and a metadata processor that determines selected metadata to encode into the free space, the text messaging program coupled to the metadata processor to encode the selected metadata into the free space for sending with text of the text message.
- 14. In a mobile communications environment, a method comprising, receiving a text message, outputting text of the message, determining that the text message includes metadata encoded into space that is not used for the text of the message, parsing the metadata, and outputting content corresponding to the metadata.
Specification