1. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to public telephone directories, and more specifically, to methods and systems for providing and managing network-based public telephone directory service.
2. Background
When a caller needs to contact another individual by telephone, the caller is required to know that individual's telephone number. If the required telephone number is not available, then the call cannot be made. People utilize various means to maintain their personal telephone directories. Some people still use the traditional hardcopy personal directory to keep their telephone numbers. However, with the advanced capability and proliferation of electronic devices, more and more people are maintaining their personal telephone directories electronically on their own electronic devices, such as, mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and computers.
Even though use of electronic devices to maintain personal telephone directories has become commonplace, such directories remain highly personal and localized. For example, a person might keep a personal directory on his/her mobile phone. Such directory is resident on a specific mobile phone and is not accessible to a user if that mobile phone is not physically available. Consequently, if a user forgets to bring his/her mobile phone, then there is no way for the user to retrieve information from the directory resident on that phone. Furthermore, a directory on the mobile phone is not easily accessible to other users. Even though some mobile phones or PDAs are equipped with short-range wireless applications to facilitate exchange of information, information exchanges are generally limited to ad hoc situations in which both devices are in relatively close proximity of one another.
Public electronic telephone directories are also available on the Internet. However, these directories tend to be compiled independently by different business entities. As a result, there is little synchronization between directories and changes made to telephone numbers do not always get propagated effectively to all directories. In addition, since these directories are compiled by different business entities, owners exercise little to no control over inquiry and distribution of their telephone numbers.
Hence, it would be desirable to provide methods and systems that are capable of providing network-based public telephone directory service that can be used to resolve, amongst other things, at least some of the foregoing problems.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds