Patent ID: 8320535

Claim:
A method of providing selectable greetings in response to a request to initiate a communication, the method comprising: maintaining, with a user profile database communicatively coupled with a communications bus, user profile information for a plurality of users; sending, with an initiating device communicatively coupled with the communications bus, messages in a format specific to the initiating device via the communications bus; storing, with the initiating device, first user profile information, about a user of the initiating device, in the user profile database; sending and receiving common language messages with a recipient device via the communications bus; translating, with the recipient device, common language messages received from the communications bus to a format specific to the recipient end device based on a type of the recipient device; storing, with the recipient device, second user profile information, about a user of the recipient device, in the user profile database; receiving, at a manager communicatively coupled with the communications bus, the request to initiate the communication from the initiating device, the request identifying the recipient device; translating, with the manager, the request to initiate the communication from the format specific to the initiating device to the common language format; in response to the translated request, selecting, with the manager, a greeting from a set of predetermined greetings in user profile information from a user of the recipient device; generating a response message to the initiating device, the response message indicating the selected greeting; and sending the response message to the initiating device.