Method and apparatus for message notification via RSS feed

Abstract

Methods of receiving audio transmissions over a telecommunication connection, extracting information about the transmissions, and publishing the information to an RSS feed are described and claimed. Systems and software using the methods are also described and claimed.

1 . A method comprising:
 receiving a transmission via an audio telecommunication connection;   extracting information about the transmission; and   publishing the information to a syndication feed.   
   
   
       2 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the syndication feed delivers items that conform to at least one of an RSS-1.0 format, an RSS-2.0 format, or an Atom format. 
   
   
       3 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 storing data derived from the transmission in a mass storage system, the data to be accessible via a Uniform Resource Locator (“URL”) included with the information published to the syndication feed; and   transmitting the data to a client that requests the URL.   
   
   
       4 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the transmission is a facsimile transmission. 
   
   
       5 . The method of  claim 4 , further comprising:
 transmitting one of a reduced-size image of a page of the facsimile transmission or an excerpt from a page of the facsimile transmission with a syndication feed item.   
   
   
       6 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the transmission is a voice message. 
   
   
       7 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the audio telecommunication connection is a telephone connection. 
   
   
       8 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the information includes at least one of a telephone number associated with the transmission, a station name associated with the transmission, or a number of pages associated with the transmission. 
   
   
       9 . A system comprising:
 a computer to receive a facsimile transmission for a subscriber;   a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (“HTTP”) server to exchange data with a plurality of systems via a distributed communication network;   a storage device to store facsimile data; and   syndication logic to produce an RSS item describing the facsimile transmission if an RSS client of the subscriber requests an RSS feed Uniform Resource Locator (“URL”).   
   
   
       10 . The system of  claim 9 , further comprising:
 a data exchanger to convert a transmission over a telephone network into a digital form for the computer.   
   
   
       11 . The system of  claim 9  wherein the RSS item comprises at least one of:
 a telephone number of a sender of the facsimile transmission;   a station name of the sender of the facsimile transmission;   a time at which the facsimile transmission was received;   a number of pages received in the facsimile transmission; and   a Uniform Resource Locator (“URL”) to access the stored facsimile data.   
   
   
       12 . The system of  claim 9  wherein the RSS item conforms with an RSS-0.91 structure, an RSS-1.0 structure, an RSS-2.0 structure or an Atom structure. 
   
   
       13 . The system of  claim 9 , further comprising:
 an electronic mail server to transmit a notification of the facsimile transmission to an electronic mail address of the subscriber.   
   
   
       14 . The system of  claim 9  wherein the HTTP server is to receive a request for the RSS feed URL from a mobile telephone. 
   
   
       15 . A machine-readable medium containing instructions to cause a programmable machine to perform operations comprising:
 receiving a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (“HTTP”) request from a feedreader;   identifying a subscriber associated with the feedreader;   searching for stored telecommunication messages for the subscriber;   preparing a syndication item describing any stored telecommunication messages; and   transmitting the syndication item to the feedreader.   
   
   
       16 . The machine-readable medium of  claim 15 , containing additional instructions to cause the programmable machine to perform operations comprising:
 formatting the syndication item as an Extensible Markup Language (“XML”) document.   
   
   
       17 . The machine-readable medium of  claim 15  wherein identifying comprises receiving a phone number associated with the subscriber embedded in the HTTP request. 
   
   
       18 . The machine-readable medium of  claim 17  wherein a stored telecommunication message described in the syndication item was received at the telephone number. 
   
   
       19 . The machine-readable medium of  claim 15  wherein the searching and preparing operations are structured as a plug-in module for a web server. 
   
   
       20 . The machine-readable medium of  claim 15  wherein the searching and preparing operations are structured as a Common Gateway Interface (“CGI”) script to be executed by a web server.