Abstract: A way of synchronizing the contents of commonly-owned mailboxes (108, 111) in disparate messaging systems, such as an e-mail system (100) and a multimedia system (101), networked via the Internet (102). The e-mail system uses the existing auto-forwarding feature (115) of the Internet e-mail community to send a copy of every message arriving at the e-mail mailbox to the other system's synchronized mailbox. The other system applies a 3-part synchronization rule (113) to every message (200) arriving at its synchronized mailbox. If it detects a syncmark (204)--an identifier--of its own mailbox in the header (201) of the message, indicating that the message was previously copy-forwarded from this system, it just deletes the message.

Abstract: A user-access interface to a voice message service system (16) includes a voice channel (13) and a data channel (14). The data channel enables the user to interact with the voice-mail service system via a video terminal or display-equipped computer (11) and to print message headers on the terminal or display. The user can then visually scan the headers. The user can then listen to the messages or record new messages via the voice channel. The interactive interface between the terminal or computer and the voice message service system over the data channel is provided by a function (30) executing on the terminal or computer and a function (31) executing on the voice-message service system.