Patent ID: 7962559

Claim:
A mobile instant messaging device for communicating instant messages with different instant messaging communities, comprising: one or more processors; one or more memory devices; a display that displays community-specific icons, each icon specifying a different one of the instant messaging communities; a database that stores characteristics of each of the communities; and an instant messaging application stored on the one or more memory devices and executable by the one or more processors, when executed the instant messaging application being configured to communicate instant messages, with a member of the community, of any of the icons selected by a user of the device, in conformity, with the characteristics stored in the database for each respective community, and further configured to monitor one or more trigger events that cause a community-specific icon to display the detection of one or more trigger events causing the processor to execute a community-specific instant messaging application for the one or more communities associated with each trigger event; wherein the instant messaging information includes the user's current presence information with respect to the respective icon's community.