Contextualized Telephony Message Management

Abstract

In one or more embodiments, one or more methods and/or systems described can transform an inbound call into one or more call streams and/or call states that can include at least one of a contextualized or personalized message, a promotion, a coupon, an offer, a voucher, an advertisement, and an opt-in program, among others. For example, the one or more methods and/or systems described can perform: receiving identification information associated with a telephony device; determining, based on the identification information, a message for the user; and sending the message to the telephony device. For instance, the message can include a coupon or discount for a good or service. In one example, the coupon or discount can be sent via a short message service text message. In another example, the coupon or discount can include a computer-readable image that can be sent via a multimedia messaging service message.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method, comprising:
 receiving identification information associated with a telephony device operated by a user;   providing, to the telephony device, media associated with a plurality of call states;   determining a message for the user based on at least one of the identification information associated with the telephony device and a current call state associated with the telephony device from among the plurality of call states;   receiving, from the telephony device, user input information indicating a request for or an acceptance of the message;   in response to receiving, from the telephony device, the user input information indicating the request for or the acceptance of the message, sending the message to the telephony device;   querying, based one the identification information associated with the telephony device, a database for profile information of the user;   building a menu that includes a plurality of menu options and a plurality of cross faded media, wherein the menu is based on the identification information associated with the telephony device and the profile information;   providing the menu to the telephony device;   receiving, from the telephony device, user input information indicating a menu option from the plurality of menu options;   wherein determining the message for the user based on the at least one of the identification information associated with the telephony device and the current call state associated with the telephony device from among the plurality of call states is further based on the user input information indicating the menu option from the plurality of menu options;   wherein the profile information includes one or more of a time zone, a country, a state, a city, a zip code, a telephony device type, a telephony device operating system, a telephony device phone number, a distance from an entity location, at least one movie rented, at least one television show watched, a number of children, at least one investment, at least one product purchase, a marital status, an age, at least one interest, at least one hobby, a gender, a birthday, an income, at least one past transaction, a content rating, a membership status, and at least one past department of an entity called;   selecting a sequence of media files; and   combining the sequence of media files to produce the plurality of cross faded media.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 querying, based on the identification information associated with the telephony device, a database for profile information of the user;   wherein determining the message for the user based on the identification information associated with the telephony device is further based on the profile information of the user.   
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein the profile information includes one or more of a time zone, a country, a state, a city, a zip code, a telephony device type, a telephony device operating system, a telephony device phone number, a distance from an entity location, at least one movie rented, at least one television show watched, a number of children, at least one investment, at least one product purchase, a marital status, an age, at least one interest, at least one hobby, a gender, a birthday, an income, at least one past transaction, a content rating, a membership status, and at least one past department of an entity called. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein sending, via the message, the message to the telephony device includes using at least one of a short message service (SMS) and a multimedia messaging service (MMS) to send the message to the telephony device. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the message is associated with an entity associated with a telephone number dialed from the telephony device. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the message includes one or more images. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 6 ,
 wherein at least one of the one or more images is configured to convey computer-readable information via a display of the telephony device; and   wherein computer-readable information is usable to identify one or more of the message, the telephony device, and the user.   
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 7 , wherein the computer-readable information includes a barcode that includes the information usable to identify one or more of the message, the telephony device, and the user. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the message includes one or more of textual information, image information, video information, and audio information. 
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the telephony device is a mobile telephony device or a voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) telephony device. 
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 determining an identification of the user based on the identification information associated with the telephony device;   wherein determining the message for the user based on the at least one of the identification information associated with the telephony device and the current call state associated with the telephony device from among the plurality of call states is further based on the identification of the user.   
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the user input information indicating the request for or the acceptance of the message includes one or more of dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) signaling information, voice information, gestural information from the user that indicates the request for or the acceptance of the message. 
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 determining a geographic location of the telephony device;   wherein determining the message for the user based on the at least one of the identification information associated with the telephony device and the current call state associated with the telephony device from among the plurality of call states is further based on the geographic location of the telephony device.   
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 13 , wherein determining the geographic location of the telephony device includes receiving the geographic location of the telephony device from a voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) telephony system. 
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 receiving information from the telephony device that indicates a department of an entity;   wherein determining the message for the user based on the at least one of the identification information associated with the telephony device and the current call state associated with the telephony device from among the plurality of call states is further based on the information from the telephony device that indicates the department of the entity.   
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein determining the message for the user based on the at least one of the identification information associated with the telephony device and the current call state associated with the telephony device from among the plurality of call states is further based on a plurality of user selected menu options. 
     
     
         17 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the message is associated with one or more of an entity, a location of the entity, an item for sale by the entity, a service for sale by the entity, and a brand of at least one item for sale by the entity. 
     
     
         18 . A system, comprising:
 a processor; and   a memory medium coupled to the processor;   wherein the memory medium includes instructions, which when executed by the processor, cause the system to perform:
 receiving identification information associated with a telephony device operated by a user; 
 querying, based on the identification information associated with the telephony device, a database for profile information of the user; 
 providing a plurality of menu options to the telephony device based on the profile information of the user; 
 receiving, from the telephony device, user input information indicating one or more selections from the plurality of menu options; 
 determining a message for the user based on the user input information indicating the one or more selections from the plurality of menu options; 
 sending the message to the telephony device; 
   querying, based one the identification information associated with the telephony device, a database for profile information of the user;   building a menu that includes a plurality of menu options and a plurality of cross faded media, wherein the menu is based on the identification information associated with the telephony device and the profile information;   providing the menu to the telephony device;   receiving, from the telephony device, user input information indicating a menu option from the plurality of menu options;   wherein determining the message for the user based on the at least one of the identification information associated with the telephony device and the current call state associated with the telephony device from among the plurality of call states is further based on the user input information indicating the menu option from the plurality of menu options;   wherein the profile information includes one or more of a time zone, a country, a state, a city, a zip code, a telephony device type, a telephony device operating system, a telephony device phone number, a distance from an entity location, at least one movie rented, at least one television show watched, a number of children, at least one investment, at least one product purchase, a marital status, an age, at least one interest, at least one hobby, a gender, a birthday, an income, at least one past transaction, a content rating, a membership status, and at least one past department of an entity called;   selecting a sequence of media files; and   combining the sequence of media files to produce the plurality of cross faded media.   
     
     
         19 . A non-transitory computer readable memory medium comprising instructions, which when executed on a processing system, cause the processing system to perform:
 receiving identification information associated with a telephony device operated by a user;   querying, based on the identification information associated with the telephony device, a database for profile information of the user;   building a menu that includes a plurality of menu options and a plurality of cross faded media, wherein at least one of the plurality of cross faded media includes at least one of the plurality of menu options, and wherein the plurality of menu options are based on the identification information associated with the telephony device and the profile information;   providing the menu to the telephony device;   receiving, from the telephony device, user input information indicating one or more selections from the plurality of menu options;   determining a message for the user based on the user input information indicating the one or more selections from the plurality of menu options;   sending the message to the telephony device;   querying, based one the identification information associated with the telephony device, a database for profile information of the user;   building a menu that includes a plurality of menu options and a plurality of cross faded media, wherein the menu is based on the identification information associated with the telephony device and the profile information;   providing the menu to the telephony device;   receiving, from the telephony device, user input information indicating a menu option from the plurality of menu options;   wherein determining the message for the user based on the at least one of the identification information associated with the telephony device and the current call state associated with the telephony device from among the plurality of call states is further based on the user input information indicating the menu option from the plurality of menu options;   wherein the profile information includes one or more of a time zone, a country, a state, a city, a zip code, a telephony device type, a telephony device operating system, a telephony device phone number, a distance from an entity location, at least one movie rented, at least one television show watched, a number of children, at least one investment, at least one product purchase, a marital status, an age, at least one interest, at least one hobby, a gender, a birthday, an income, at least one past transaction, a content rating, a membership status, and at least one past department of an entity called;   selecting a sequence of media files; and   combining the sequence of media files to produce the plurality of cross faded media.   
     
     
         20 . The non-transitory computer readable memory medium of claim  31 , wherein the memory medium further includes instructions, which when executed on the processing system, cause the processing system to perform:
 sending a proffer for the message to the telephony device; and   receiving, from the telephony device, user input information indicating a request for or an acceptance of the message;   wherein sending the message to the telephony device is performed in response to receiving, from the telephony device, the user input information indicating the request for or the acceptance of the message.