Patent ID: 7739327

Claim:
A system for delivering streaming multi-media content over the Internet comprising: at least one client workstation, responsively interfaced to the Internet wherein link encoded web pages, or link encoded electronic mail messages, or link encoded web pages and link encoded electronic mail messages, are displayed and said at least one client workstation enabling a user to select a hyperlink of the link encoded web pages, or link encoded electronic mail messages, or link encoded web pages and link encoded electronic mail messages, thereby resulting in transmission of a first request over the Internet for receiving multi-media content, wherein each link encoded web page includes one or more encoded hyperlinks comprising first reference information and each link encoded electronic mail message includes one or more encoded hyperlinks comprising first reference information, wherein first reference information comprises information specifying the multi-media content and format associated therewith; at least one link processing server interfaced to the Internet and hosting at least one link conversion process, wherein the link processing server translates first reference information from one or more of the encoded hyperlinks to second reference information that enables one or more formats to stream without having to deploy from a web server one or more reference files containing the second reference information, wherein the second reference information comprises first reference information and a location where the multi-media content is stored, and the link processing server receives the first request for the multi-media content from said at least one client workstation, the first request comprising specification of the multi-media content in at least one of a banner ad, a pre-clip, a post-clip, and a web page embedding, and said at least one link processing server transmits second reference information to the client workstation, then the client workstation generates a second request to stream the multi-media content to said at least one client workstation, wherein said second request is automatically formatted or preformatted to be in conformity at least with the format of the multi-media content via said at least one link conversion process, and wherein said at least one link conversion process does not create any reference files for storage on a web server; and at least one streaming multi-media server interfaced to the Internet and storing the multi-media content, and the at least one streaming multi-media server is responsive to said second request received from said at least one link processing server so as to deliver the multi-media content over the Internet to said at least one client workstation.