Patent ID: 8452852

Claim:
A presence system for providing an information service to users, comprising: a presence server for collecting and storing presence information on a plurality of presentities and providing said presence information to watchers of said presentities; wherein one of said presentities is an information provider capable of producing real time service information to provide said information service to users and said watchers of said information provider include said users, said presence system enabling said information provider to provide said information service to said users; wherein said presence server further maintains watcher groups for said information provider, each of said watcher groups including one or more of said watchers of said information provider; wherein said presence server receives updated presence information from said information provider, said updated presence information being said real-time service information, said presence server further for matching said real time service information against preference information including key words defined by said information provider to determine a select one of said watcher groups to receive said real time service information; wherein said presence server further maintains watcher presence information and watcher preference information for each of said watchers, said watcher preference information specifying that no media types or only certain media types are available on any terminal of the watcher or particular terminals of the watcher when the watcher presence information indicates a busy status; and wherein said presence server provides said real-time service information as said updated presence information to available terminals of said watchers within said select watcher group.