Direct contact to mobile system subscribers is an important method for third-party and carrier-based promotions directed to potential customers for additional services and software for their mobile devices (used herein interchangeably with “mobile handset”). Currently, such promotions have certain limitations in practice. Promotional messages are of limited length, are text-only, and are processed and stored in the mobile device's Short Message Service (SMS) inbox. Richer content associated with the promotions may be referenced using Internet Uniform Resource Locators (URLs), but such links have to be re-typed by the subscriber in order to reach the associated Web pages on the Internet. Similarly, pictures, images or sound may be delivered as content using Multimedia Message Service (MMS). MMS is limited in that MMS provides for immediate content delivery, and is not trigger-based. MMS also provides no feedback mechanism from users, such as in providing interactive or dynamic buttons on a display screen, only providing delivery of content. MIMS is also restricted as to its ability to combine types of content in the display—such as text and a picture—and has no uniform method to put them together in the presentation on a particular device, as it is very dependent on methods adapted to a specific handset and display type.
One current disadvantage of text-based SMS (or MMS) promotional campaigns is the uncertainty around the delivery time. While most SMS messages are delivered within a matter of seconds, mass SMS campaigns can suffer from traffic constraints at the Short Message Service Center (SMSC), or experience widespread delay because of the subscribers' handsets being turned off, or face time-of-delivery constraints (e.g., shortened period for sending across the U.S. to reach all time zones, 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. EST, reaching users on PST from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., to avoid sending when subscribers in the spectrum of time zones are not in work hours) because the time zone of receiving handsets is unknown. This can lead to messages being delivered in a very limited range of hours, or at unacceptable hours, or require unwanted padding around the targeted delivery time.
It would be advantageous, therefore, to be able to deliver content when a subscriber is active on their mobile device (or handset), thus able to immediately view the message or advertising, as well as to target or personalize the content to be delivered based on the subscriber, their activity on the mobile handset, or activity or location of the mobile handset. It would also be advantageous to deliver and store such messages on the mobile handset independent of the trigger events or display of the message content, asynchronously.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds