Patent ID: 8600357

Claim:
A method of mass population notification of a lost item, the method comprising: displaying a menu to a user, the menu displaying at least a list of at least two menu items, each menu item in the list displaying at least: (1) a specific number of residents or phone numbers to be contacted by the service in a vicinity of a specified location where an item was lost and (2) an associated fee to be paid to the service to contact the specific number of residents or phone numbers; receiving user input including at least a selection of a menu item from the list of at least two menu items, the selected menu item having an associated specified number of residents or phone numbers in the vicinity of the specified location to be contacted; in response to receiving the user input, automatically determining a set of phone numbers within an area around the location from at least one online phone number database, the set of phone numbers is of a size that is equal to or greater than containing at least the specified number of residents or phone numbers in the vicinity of the specified location; creating an audio and/or text message containing information regarding the lost item; and sending the audio and/or text message to the set of phone numbers.