Patent ID: 8457019

Claim:
A method, in a data processing system, for conference call communication in a virtual world environment, comprising: establishing a hybrid conference call by establishing a hybrid conference call communication connection between a data based communication conference call server, that handles data based communications with client computing devices, and a telephone conference call server, that handles telephone protocol communications with telephone devices external to the virtual world environment; receiving, in the data based communication conference call server, a first data based communication associated with the hybrid conference call from a client computing device; converting the first data based communication to a first telephone protocol communication to generate a converted telephone protocol communication; forwarding the converted telephone protocol communication to one or more telephone devices via the telephone conference call server; receiving, in the telephone conference call server, a second telephone protocol communication associated with the hybrid conference call from a telephone device; converting the second telephone protocol communication to a second data based communication to generate a converted data based communication; and forwarding the converted data based communication to one or more client computing devices via the data based communication conference call server, wherein establishing the hybrid conference call comprises: associating a virtual meeting place with a location within the virtual world environment, wherein within the virtual meeting place a first set of users of virtual world environment avatars perform voice communication with each other using the data based communications; and associating a conventional telephone number conference call call-in number and passcode with the location within the virtual world environment, wherein a second set of users that do not have avatars in the virtual world environment communicate with the first set of users by dialing into the hybrid conference call using the call-in number and passcode and performing voice communication using telephone protocol communications.