Patent ID: 7756539

Claim:
A method for notifying a user of an event, comprising: receiving an identifier of a push-to-talk (PTT) carrier and information for addressing a user's PTT enabled device via the PTT carrier, the identifier and information received by an online service that generates event data for users having accounts with the online service; receiving, by the online service, a request from the user to forward event data to the user via the PTT carrier if the user is not available online, the request describing what portion of the event data is to be forwarded to the user via the PTT carrier, the portion being less than the entire event data; receiving event data to be provided to the user from the online service, the event data is received at an event data processor; determining whether the user is online to receive the event data via the online service; delivering the entire event data to the user online via the online service if the user is online; if the user is not online, performing the substeps of: filtering the event data to determine which portions of the event data to provide to the user, the portions comprising less than the entire event data, the filtering is based on the stored description of what portion of the event data is to be forwarded to the user via the PTT carrier; creating a message configured to comply with a PTT format associated with the PTT carrier for the user; determining how to provide the message to the PTT carrier associated with the user based on the received PTT identifier and the information for addressing the user's PTT enabled device via the PTT carrier; and providing the message with the filtered event data and the information for addressing the user's PTT enabled device via the PTT carrier to the PTT carrier based on the PTT format, the message is provided from the event data processor to the PTT carrier to be delivered to the user's PTT enabled device without the PTT enabled device having a session maintained with the event data processor.