Patent ID: 8695030

Claim:
A system, comprising: a content processing device that selectively receives media content for display on a media playback device; and a software application configured to be executed by the content processing device to communicate with a messaging proxy over a network, wherein a limited resource of the content processing device, including at least one of a limited memory resource and a limited persistent storage resource, makes installing a complete messaging client application including the functionality of both the software application and the messaging proxy at the content processing device impossible, the software application configured to: announce the presence of the software application to the messaging proxy, the messaging proxy being configured to announce the presence of the messaging proxy representing the software application to a messaging server, provide an identifier stored in and uniquely identifying the content processing device to the messaging proxy to be validated by the messaging proxy, the messaging proxy being configured to validate the identifier to determine whether the content processing device has permission to use the services of the messaging proxy, receive, from the messaging proxy, a list of potential message recipients whose presence is detected by the messaging server, and perform at least one of (a) receiving message content from a remote computer by way of the messaging proxy and providing the message content for display on the media playback device, and (b) receiving input for a message from the content processing device and sending the input to the remote computer by way of the messaging proxy.