Methods and Apparatuses to Provide Multimedia Connections

Abstract

Methods and apparatuses to provide services to people who wish to make connections for real time communication, such as live telephone conversation, chat, video conferencing, etc., and/or non-real time communication, such as email. In one embodiment, a method includes: a first party providing one or more references to a second party for distribution to customers, the one or more references capable of being used to request the first party to provide a plurality of communication connections to a communicatee, the plurality of communication connections being connected simultaneously to the communicatee at least for a period of time; and the first party charging separate fees for the plurality of communication connections.

1 . A method, comprising: 
 a first party providing one or more references to a second party for distribution to customers, the one or more references capable of being used to request the first party to provide a plurality of communication connections to a communicatee, the plurality of communication connections being connected simultaneously to the communicatee at least for a period of time; and    the first party charging separate fees for the plurality of communication connections.    
   
   
       2 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising: 
 the first party placing one or more Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calls via a telecommunication carrier to the communicatee to establish at least some of the communication connections to the communicatee, the telecommunication carrier to bridge the VoIP calls to the communicatee.    
   
   
       3 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein subsequent calls of the VoIP calls are placed into a conference with prior calls of the VoIP calls to the communicatee.  
   
   
       4 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the separate fees are based on respective time lengths of the communication connections.  
   
   
       5 . The method of  claim 4 , wherein the time lengths of the communication connections are different.  
   
   
       6 . The method of  claim 4 , wherein a first connection of the communication connections is from a first customer to the communicatee; and the second connection of the communication connections is from a second customer to the communicatee.  
   
   
       7 . The method of  claim 6 , wherein the first connection and the second connection are of a same type.  
   
   
       8 . The method of  claim 7 , wherein the first connection and the second connection are phone connections.  
   
   
       9 . The method of  claim 8 , wherein the phone connections are partially over circuit switched network and partially over packet switched network; and the method further comprises: 
 receiving a communication from the communicates in a first language;    translating the communication from the first language to a second language; and    providing the communication in the second language to a customer over one of the plurality of communication connections.    
   
   
       10 . The method of  claim 8 , wherein the first connection and the second connection are bridged in a conference in which a voice input from the first customer is delivered to both the communicates and the second customer.  
   
   
       11 . The method of  claim 4 , wherein the first connection of the communication connections is of a first type; and the second connection of the communication connections is of a second type.  
   
   
       12 . The method of  claim 11 , wherein the first connection and the second connection are from a same customer.  
   
   
       13 . The method of  claim 11 , wherein the first connection and the second connection are for communications in different ones of text, voice, audio, video, and image.  
   
   
       14 . The method of  claim 11 , wherein the first connection and the second connection use different communication protocol.  
   
   
       15 . The method of  claim 11 , wherein the first connection is capable to support real time communications and the second connection is capable to support non-real time communications.  
   
   
       16 . The method of  claim 11 , wherein the first connection and the second connection are requested via a same reference.  
   
   
       17 . The method of  claim 11 , wherein the first connection and the second connection are requested via separate ones of the one or more references.  
   
   
       18 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising: 
 providing information on availability of the communicatee to accept the connections in response to the one or more references to be rendered in a browser.    
   
   
       19 . The method of  claim 18 , wherein the provided information determines an appearance of the one or more references in the browser.  
   
   
       20 . The method of  claim 18 , wherein the information comprises an icon.  
   
   
       21 . A machine readable medium containing instructions which when executed on a data processing system cause the system to perform a method, comprising: 
 a first party providing one or more references to a second party for distribution to customers, the one or more references capable of being used to request the first party to provide a plurality of communication connections to a communicatee, the plurality of communication connections being connected simultaneously to the communicatee at least for a period of time; and    the first party charging separate fees for the plurality of communication connections.    
   
   
       22 . A data processing system, comprising: 
 means for a first party providing one or more references to a second party for distribution to customers, the one or more references capable of being used to request the first party to provide a plurality of communication connections to a communicatee, the plurality of communication connections being connected simultaneously to the communicatee at least for a period of time; and    means for the first party charging separate fees for the plurality of communication connections.