Current technologies enable a person to communicate with others using multiple communication platforms and media types. Communication platforms may include different communication providers (e.g., SKYPE, YAHOO, MSN, SAMETIME, AOL, etc.) and media types may include different methods of communication, such as text, voice, and/or video based communications. Communications between parties may be one way or two way and they may vary according to the devices and applications used. During these communications, the availability of a user to communicate with others via a specific platform and media type is relayed using presence information. Generally, presence information represents the status of a presentity and may be used to show if the presentity is present or not present and/or available or not available to communicate.
Considering the many different forms of communication available to a presentity, there may be multiple presence statuses for a single presentity. Each status may reflect an availability of the presentity to communicate via a specific platform and media type. In many instances, the multiple statuses are scattered across multiple presence servers. Currently, standards and products exist which allow a presence server to aggregate this scattered presence information into a single document. Further, some integrated client software can retrieve presence information from multiple presence servers and facilitate communications via different communication systems.
When these products present presence information, they usually display separate lists for each available platform associated with a presentity or an integrated list listing the various available communication platforms of the presentity. A graphical presence icon is commonly used to indicate the level of availability of the presentity and the specific platform being used by the presentity. Other software clients only show a single presence icon even though more than one media type is available for the presentity. The main issue with these systems is that either the icon only shows one presence detail of the presentity (e.g., availability of the presentity on one specific platform and media type) and hides other presence details, or a long list of presence icons are displayed for the presentity, which occupies a large area of space.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds