Patent ID: 7305350

Claim:
A method of notifying a potential customer of available goods or services, the method comprising: establishing, at a host system configured to provide presence-based personal messaging services, personal messaging communication sessions with multiple client systems associated with multiple potential customers; accessing location information indicative of a first location of a mobile vendor in transit, wherein the mobile vendor has available goods or services; determining that the mobile vendor is in a first area based on the location information indicative of the first location of the mobile vendor; identifying a first group of potential customers, the first group of potential customers including the multiple potential customers that have established personal messaging communication sessions and are proximate to the first area; accessing location information indicative of a second location of the mobile vendor in transit; determining that the mobile vendor is in a second area based on the location information indicative of the second location of the mobile vendor, the second area being different than the first area; identifying a second group of potential customers, the second group of potential customers including the multiple potential customers that have established personal messaging communication sessions and are proximate to the second area and the second group of potential customers including at least one customer not included in the first group of potential customers; selecting a potential customer from among the second group of potential customers that have established personal messaging communication sessions and are proximate to the second area; and sending, using the host system, a personal messaging communication over an established personal messaging communication session corresponding to the selected potential customer from among the second group of potential customers that have established personal messaging communication sessions and are proximate to the second area, the personal messaging communication offering an available good or service provided by the mobile vendor to the selected potential customer.