Mobile applications that display text message threads are often deployed on devices that have limited visual display area, such as mobile phones. Additionally, there may be advertising content linked to elements (words, phrases, punctuation, etc.) of the conversation. Due to the small display area, visual advertising content must remain hidden or be as unobtrusive as possible until the user wishes to access it.
One approach is to highlight the elements that have additional advertising (or other content) such that no additional space is taken up on the display, but the user is still aware of the visual cue. Text color, font, font weight, and the like are all ways that this can be accomplished.
After the user has been made aware of the visual content cues, they may select them to access the additional content. This might be done by navigating and selecting highlighted cues with a keypad, or by selecting them directly with a pointing device, such as a mouse, touchpad, or the like. Unfortunately, this can be unwieldy and inconvenient on a small device, especially when the user is involved in other tasks, such as driving a car, that require visual attention and which occupy the hands and eyes at the same time.
Thus, a need exists for an approach whereby speech transcription is used to access additional content associated with textual conversation data while minimizing user distraction and the use of hands and eyes. This need is addressed by one or more aspects of the invention.