Patent ID: 8600416

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving at an apparatus a messaging request associated with a user indicating that the user opts to receive content from a content provider, wherein the apparatus is operated by a service provider independent from the content provider, and the messaging request identifies the content provider among a plurality of content providers via a short code registered with a common short code association; receiving, according to the multimedia protocol, the content from the content provider as part of the messaging request for a device of the user, wherein the messaging request includes addressing information corresponding to the device and a short code of the content provider; retrieving the user profile based on the addressing information; in response to the messaging request, determining by the apparatus whether the user profile specifies opting to receive content from the content provider; and validating the messaging request based on the short code and the user profile; and based on the validation, selectively forwarding from the apparatus, according to a multimedia protocol, the content to the device as a multimedia messaging service (MMS) message or a short messaging service (SMS) message based on the determination, wherein the multimedia protocol supports both MMS messaging and SMS messaging.