System and method for providing a personalized identity to a destination

Abstract

An identification manager provides a user-generated identity of an initiating party during a connection to a destination. The identification manager includes an identity store for storing user-generated identities, and an identity provider associated with the identity store, for retrieving, from the identity store, a user-generated identity of the initiating party, and for providing the retrieved identity to the destination. Prior to delivery of the retrieved identity to the destination, the identity provider may sense connection characteristics, such as the network type and terminal capabilities of the destination party, and adapt the initiating party's identity to the sensed characteristics. The identification manager may also include a provisioning system for users to generate multimedia identities by various mechanisms. Identity provisioning may be performed automatically, as user replies to system initiated IVR calls, MMS messages and/or SMS messages. Additional provisioning mechanisms include a user-initiated provisioning system for users to generate multimedia identities over the Web, as well as a dedicated identity-provisioning client, for generating an identity on the user device or terminal.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.