Patent ID: 8713451

Claim:
A method for providing rich media content to a user via an email system, comprising the steps of: registering a sender of rich media content with the email system; issuing a unique sender identifier to the sender; receiving rich media content from the sender; responsive to verifying the received rich media content is from the sender based on the issued unique sender identifier, the email system assigning a campaign ID to the rich media content, storing the received rich media content in a rich media database, and sending the campaign ID to the sender; receiving an email message intended for delivery to the user; determining whether the email message contains the campaign ID; responsive to the email message containing the campaign ID, the email system skipping checking of the email message for the unique sender identifier and delivering the email message to an email data store, and responsive to receiving notification that the recipient has selected opening of the email message containing the campaign ID, delivering the email message from the email data store to a computer associated with the user and delivering the rich media content from the rich media database to the computer associated with the user via a dedicated media channel; and responsive to the email message not containing the campaign ID, the email system checking the email message for the unique sender identifier and a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) for linking to media content for display to the user, responsive to the email message lacking the unique sender identifier, delivering the email message to the email data store, and responsive to receiving notification that the user has selected opening of the email message lacking the unique sender identifier, blocking delivery of the media content linked to the URL to the computer associated with the user.