Patent ID: 7528974

Claim:
A method for providing print services, the method comprising: providing a content sourcing platform coupled via a gateway to a plurality of unique wireless systems, each wireless system associated with a plurality of mobile devices, the gateway enabling the content sourcing platform to communicate via any of the wireless systems to the mobile devices associated with those wireless systems; coupling a plurality of printing devices to the content sourcing platform via a printing network, forming networked printers; communicating at least one data alert message from the content sourcing platform to the mobile devices using an asynchronous data alert message service, wherein the at least one data alert message comprises an alert message comprising an alert regarding the availability of a printable document and a means for initiating the printing of the printable document with a print request; selecting at least one printing device to generate a polling request and print the printable document, wherein the step of identifying at least one printing device comprises: generating a document ID by the content sourcing platform, the document ID being uniquely associated with the printable document, providing the document ID to a user of at least one of the mobile devices; accepting the input of the document ID, by the user, into at least one of the system printers, forming a selected printer; and transmitting a polling request by the selected printer to the printing network; receiving at least one print request at the content sourcing platform from at least one of the mobile devices using the asynchronous data alert message service; and sending the printable document from the content sourcing platform to the printing network comprising a spooling server adapted to: (a) receive and store the requested document, (b) receive over a network a polling request from a printer polling device associated with the print device, the polling request identifying the requested document stored at the spooling server, and (c) transmit the requested document to the printer polling device in response to the polling request.