Method and apparatus for content presentation in association with a telephone call

摘要

A method and apparatus are provided for presenting multimedia content to caller and/or a called party in association with a telephone call. Content may be presented pre-ring (before the called party's telephone rings), in-call and/or post-call. Content presented to a party may be related to another party participating in the call or may be related to a third party (e.g., an advertiser that paid for the ability to have its content presented). Presented content may be actuable, and allow a caller to change the destination of a call, take advantage of an offer presented to him, redeem a coupon, schedule or queue a subsequent call, etc. To find a desired destination party, a caller may initiate a manual or automatic search of his local contacts (on his telephone) and/or a central or global directory or contact list. Calls to or from certain parties or numbers may be screened or filtered.

主权项

1. A method of filtering calls initiated from a communication device and presenting content on the communication device, the method comprising:
receiving electronic notification of initiation of a call from the communication device to a target destination, wherein:
the call is initiated by an operator of the communication device; andsignaling of the call to a communication service provider of the communication device is delayed by a call processor operating on the communication device;identifying content to be presented on the communication device in association with the call;instructing the communication device to present the identified content, the identified content being unrelated to establishment of the call and comprising an actuable control, wherein actuation of the control terminates said delaying of the signaling; andduring the call, without interrupting the call, instructing the communication device to present additional content, wherein:the target destination is an organization;the additional content comprises multiple selectable identities of corresponding entities within the organization; andselection of one of the selectable identities causes the call to be routed to the corresponding entity.