Method & Apparatus for Arranging Video Chat among Acquaintances

摘要

A system registers participant information and inter-participant relationship information, and then, at variable times, selects two or more participants with a pre-existing relationship and attempts to establish a communication link between them. The identities of the selected participants are withheld from at least one of the participants (and potentially from all of the participants), so the call is a partial surprise (i.e., the participant may know the set of possible people from whom the call could be, but does not know exactly which person or people are calling until he answers the call). A number of applications are described and claimed.

主权项

1. A method comprising:
receiving participant information from a plurality of individuals, said participant information comprising a communication contact address and an acceptable contact window; selecting at least two individuals from the plurality of individuals, said selection based upon a pre-existing relationship between the at least two individuals and an overlap between the acceptable contact window of each of the at least two individuals; and at a time within the overlap between the acceptable contact windows, initiating a call to each of the at least two individuals, said initiating to withhold an identity of at least one of the at least two individuals from at least another of the at least two individuals until a predetermined time after initiating the call.