Patent ID: 7945618

Claim:
A peer-to-peer communication system, comprising: a re-direct server executing server software and including a database including a plurality of system users and for each of said plurality of system users, a corresponding user ID, password, and IP addresses for each corresponding user computer, wherein the re-direct server authenticates each of the plurality of system users using the stored user IDs and passwords, and based on the user being authenticated, enables the users to communicate directly with other users; a plurality of user computers, including the corresponding user computers, interconnected with one another and the re-direct server via the Internet, each user computer executing peer-to-peer client software, wherein each of the plurality of user computers initially communicates with the re-direct server for authentication, wherein said peer-to-peer client software enables a given user to select a group of other system users of the plurality of system users, the selected group stored in a list of friends of the given user; wherein with said peer-to-peer client software said given user arbitrarily defines a plurality of zones, each zone comprising one or more functionally different peer-to-peer communication services graphically laid out within a container window, wherein arbitrarily defining the plurality of zones comprises: selecting, by the given user, a name for each of the plurality of zones, presenting to the given user a listing of a plurality of functionally different peer-to-peer services, the listing including interactive peer-to-peer services, selecting, by the given user, one or more functionally different peer-to-peer communication services from the presented listing of functionally different peer-to-peer services, wherein the user interfaces associated with the selected peer-to-peer services are graphically laid out within the container window representing each of the plurality of zones, and selecting, from the list of friends of the given user, one or more other users authorized to have access to each of the plurality of zones, wherein each of the selected name, selected peer-to-peer services, and authorized users are maintained as a definition for the zone, said peer-to-peer client software executed by each of said plurality of user computers is further configured to: activate one or more defined zones, for which the corresponding user is authorized to access, concurrently by displaying the container window representing each of the one or more defined zones, for each activated zone, activating the one or more selected communication services corresponding to the activated zone, wherein the communication services enable the corresponding user to communicate with the given user and other users authorized to access to the activated zone, restrict access to each zone to the selected users authorized to have access to each zone, and maintain the definition of each zone, even when the zone is not active.