Abstract: A method and apparatus for linking a web based account to a phone based account is described. The method avoids the need to directly reveal account information, e.g. username/password, about one account to the provider of the other. The linking occurs on the web in one embodiment, with a user's browser being redirected from the web site to the web site of the provider of the voice service. The redirection URL will include account linking information. Once the user identifies herself to the web site of the provider of the voice service, the linking information can be stored in the user's phone account as a cookie. When the user access the voice service over the phone, her telephone identifying information can be used to identify her profile. When she visits the phone application corresponding to the web site, the cookie—now including linking information—can be passed to the application to identify the appropriate web account.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for providing streaming content over telephones is described. The creation of a voice portal is supported by the invention. Embodiments of the invention use allows users to place a telephone call to access the voice portal. The user can access many different types of content. This content can include text based content which is read to the user by a text to speech system (e.g., news reports, stock prices, text content of Internet sites), audio content which can be played to the user (e.g., voicemail messages, music), and streaming audio content (e.g., Internet broadcast radio shows, streaming news reports, and streaming live broadcasts). This content can be accessed from many different places. For example, the content can be retrieved from a news feed, a local streaming content server, an audio repository, and/or an Internet based streaming content server. The streaming content allows the user to access live web broadcasts even though the user may not have access to a computer.

Abstract: Methods and systems automatically download computer software components from a computer network like the Internet or an intranet. The methods and systems can be used to provide dynamic or interactive multimedia components in HTML documents with HTML <OBJECT> tags. The HTML <OBJECT> tags can contain parameters including uniform resource locators (URLs) which reference dynamic or interactive multimedia components on remote computers. Network browsers and other applications can obtain computer software components from a computer network like the Internet or an intranet in a uniform, portable, architecture-neutral, robust manner. The computer software components obtained can be used to provide a variety of new multimedia functionality to an application program.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for providing personalized information content over telephones is described. The creation of a voice portal is supported by the invention. Embodiments of the invention use telephone identifying information such as the calling party's number to identify, or create, user profiles for customization. The personalized content is specific to that user based on her/his telephone identifying information and may be further customized based on the current time, current date, the calling party's locales, and/or the calling party's dialect and speech patterns. Also, the telephone identifying information may support targeted advertising, content, and purchasing recommendations specific to that user. The system may use a voice password and/or touch-tone login system when appropriate to distinguish the caller or verify the caller's identity for specific activities.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for providing personalized information content over telephones is described. The creation of a voice portal is supported by the invention. Embodiments of the invention use telephone identifying information such as the calling party's number to identify, or create, user profiles for customization. The personalized content is specific to that user based on her/his telephone identifying information and may be further customized based on the current time, current date, the calling party's locales, and/or the calling party's dialect and speech patterns. Also, the telephone identifying information may support targeted advertising, content, and purchasing recommendations specific to that user. The system may use a voice password and/or touch-tone login system when appropriate to distinguish the caller or verify the caller's identity for specific activities.

Abstract: Methods and systems automatically download computer software components from a computer network like the Internet or an intranet. The methods and systems can be used to provide dynamic or interactive multimedia components in HTML documents with HTML <OBJECT> tags. The HTML <OBJECT> tags can contain parameters including uniform resource locators (URLs) which reference dynamic or interactive multimedia components on remote computers. Network browsers and other applications can obtain computer software components from a computer network like the Internet or an intranet in a uniform, portable, architecture-neutral, robust manner. The computer software components obtained can be used to provide a variety of new multimedia functionality to an application program.

Abstract: A client-based system has a scheduling subsystem to schedule a time to obtain the Web content from the server. When the client reaches the scheduled time, the scheduling subsystem generates an event notification that contains sufficient information explaining how to retrieve the Web content. The client-based system has a delivery subsystem that is responsive to the event notification to obtain the Web content at the time set by the scheduling subsystem. The delivery subsystem preferably has multiple delivery modules that enable different types of distribution mechanism. In addition to the Web content or data itself, the delivery subsystem obtains an index to the Web content. The index summarizes the Web content to facilitate local search and find tasks. The index and Web content are stored in a cache at the client. An indexing subsystem presents the index to a user and enables the user to select from the index portions of the Web content that they prefer.

Abstract: A phone based loyalty rewards approach is described. The approach focuses on rewarding certain behaviors by maintaining a rewards balance usable for services such as free telephone calls. Users can be awarded some initial value of rewards balance at registration and then can earn additional rewards through their activities. Calls can be placed using voice dialing against a user supplied address book in one embodiment. Additionally, the rewards can be directly integrated with an advanced dial tone service offering and minutes spent on phone calls beyond the then available rewards balance charged to the user. The rewards are designed to encourage behaviors such as full and accurate registrations, regular usage, trying new features, etc.

Abstract: A method and system to automatically locate, download, verify, install, register and display computer software components from a computer network like the Internet or an intranet. The method and system is used to provide dynamic or interactive multimedia components in HTML documents with HTML <OBJECT> tags. The HTML <OBJECT> tags contain parameters including uniform resource locators (URLs) which reference dynamic or interactive multimedia components on remote computers. Network browsers and other applications can obtain computer software components from a computer network like the Internet or an intranet in a uniform, portable, architecture-neutral, robust manner. The computer software components obtained can be used to provide a variety of new multimedia functionality to an application program which is stored on remote computers.

Abstract: A client-based system has a scheduling subsystem to schedule a time to obtain the Web content from the server. When the client reaches the scheduled time, the scheduling subsystem generates an event notification that contains sufficient information explaining how to retrieve the Web content. The client-based system has a delivery subsystem that is responsive to the event notification to obtain the Web content at the time set by the scheduling subsystem. The delivery subsystem preferably has multiple delivery modules that enable different types of distribution mechanism. In addition to the Web content or data itself, the delivery subsystem obtains an index to the Web content. The index summarizes the Web content to facilitate local search and find tasks. The index and Web content are stored in a cache at the client. An indexing subsystem presents the index to a user and enables the user to select from the index portions of the Web content that they prefer.