Patent ID: 7076495

Claim:
A computer implemented method for displaying, at a client, transient messages received over a network, the method comprising: capturing, independently of a user action, at different times, a plurality of separate screen images, of only a portion of a display at the client, of a plurality of different multimedia objects each containing at least one transient message and each rendered on a the portion of the display at the client; wherein the different times are determined by a change in content and wherein the change in content is determined by utilizing a document object model of the displayed page to determine the change in content as a triggering event to capture the screen image; storing each captured screen image of the multimedia object, in a chronological list; and displaying the chronological list with control buttons for enabling a subsequent rendering of the stored captured screen images in a forward and backward succession, at a user configurable rate, in response to a user selection of one of the displayed control buttons, wherein the displayed control buttons are independent of any playback control displayed in conjunction with initially rendering a given multimedia object from which the screen images were captured.