Systems and methods to provide multiple connections for anonymous communication in a virtual environment

#The present patent application relates to U.S. Pat. App. Pub. No. 2007/0189520, published on Aug. 16, 2007 and entitled “Systems and Methods to Facilitate Transition from Communication to Commerce,” and U.S. Pat. App. Pub. No. 2008/0097845, published on Apr. 24, 2008 and entitled “Systems and Methods to Provide Voice Connections via Local Telephone Numbers,” the entire disclosures of which applications are hereby incorporated herein by reference.

#At least some embodiments disclosed relate to telephonic connections in general and, more specifically but not limited to, user interfaces for establishing telephonic connections.

#Telephone systems allow users to conduct real time two-way voice communication. Traditional land-line based telephone systems connect one telephone set to another through one or more switching centers, operated by one or more telephone companies, over a land-line based telephone network. Traditionally, a telephone connection is based on a circuit switched network.

#The present disclosure is illustrated by way of example and not limitation in the figures of the accompanying drawings in which like references indicate similar elements.

#FIG. 1 shows a method to establish connections for real time communications according to one embodiment.

#FIG. 2 illustrates a user interface for the creation of an advertisement according to one embodiment.

#In the following description, for purposes of explanation, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the description. It will be apparent, however, to one skilled in the art that embodiments of the disclosure can be practiced without these specific details. In other instances, structures and devices are shown in block diagram form in order to avoid obscuring the description.

#Reference in this specification to “one embodiment” or “an embodiment” means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment of the disclosure. The appearances of the phrase “in one embodiment” in various places in the specification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment, nor are separate or alternative embodiments mutually exclusive of other embodiments. Moreover, various features are described which may be exhibited by some embodiments and not by others. Similarly, various requirements are described which may be requirements for some embodiments but not other embodiments. Unless excluded by explicit description and/or apparent incompatibility, any combination of various features described in this description is also included here. For example, the features described above in connection with “in one embodiment” or “in some embodiments” can be all optionally included in one implementation, except where the dependency of certain features on other features, as apparent from the description, may limit the options of excluding selected features from the implementation, and incompatibility of certain features with other features, as apparent from the description, may limit the options of including selected features together in the implementation.

#FIG. 1 shows a method to establish connections for real time communications according to one embodiment. In FIG. 1, user A (121) provides a contact for real time communication, such as a telephone reference of the user A. The contact can be used to establish a connection with user A (121) through a communication network. For example, the contact can be a telephone number of a landline, traditional analog telephone, a cellular phone number, a phone number with an extension, a Universal Resource Identifier (URI) such as a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) URI, a user identifier of a VoIP application, a user identifier of an instant messaging system, etc.