Patent ID: 7644166

Claim:
A method for audibly informing a recipient of an arrival of a digital communication from a sender, the method comprising: receiving a digital communication from a sender directed to a recipient; determining whether the digital communication is associated with an audio identifier that identifies the sender of the digital communication and that is designated by the sender of the digital communication; and conditioning rendering of the audio identifier for perception by the recipient on whether the digital communication is determined to be associated with the audio identifier, the audio identifier being rendered multiple times in repetition in response to receipt of the digital communication, each of the multiple renderings being prior to or concurrent with perception of the digital communication by the recipient, wherein the sender comprises a caller and the digital communication comprises a phone call, wherein: receiving a digital communication comprises receiving the phone call directed to the recipient; determining whether the digital communication is associated with an audio identifier comprises determining whether the phone call is associated with an audio identifier that identifies the caller and that is designated by the caller; and conditioning rendering of the audio identifier comprises conditioning rendering of the audio identifier on whether the phone call is determined to be associated with the audio identifier, the audio identifier being rendered multiple times in repetition so as to be made perceivable as a ring tone for the phone call, wherein determining whether the digital communication is associated with an audio identifier comprises accessing a data store located at a recipient computer system based on a user identifier of the sender, and wherein the rendering of the audio identifier also is conditioned on whether communication exchange preferences associated with the recipient and stored in the data store allow the recipient to perceive the audio identifier.