Patent ID: 8166119

Claim:
A method of automatically selecting a delivery method for delivery of an electronic message to a recipient based on availability information associated with the recipient, the method comprising: displaying a plurality of icons, each of the plurality of icons corresponding to one or more recipients, wherein at least one of the plurality of icons is a group icon corresponding to a group of two or more recipients; receiving a composition of an electronic message; receiving a user's selection of group icon indicating that the two or more recipients in the group corresponding to the selected group icon are intended recipients of the electronic message; retrieving availability information associated with at least one recipient in the group corresponding to the selected group icon, wherein the availability information is retrieved from at least one electronic device or service of the at least one recipient; analyzing the retrieved availability information to determine an availability of the at least one recipient; selecting a delivery method from a plurality of delivery methods for delivering the electronic message to the at least one recipient, wherein the selection is made based at least in part on the determined availability of the at least one recipient; transmitting the electronic message to the at least one recipient in the group via the selected delivery method; and transmitting the electronic message to the other recipients in the group via a delivery method that is different than the selected delivery method.