Patent ID: 8892662

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving a voice call from a calling party; prompting the calling party to specify an input associated with a called party in response to the received voice call; determining, in response to the input, that the called party is available via an instant communication session; and selectively prompting the calling party to determine whether to communicate with the called party via the instant communication session; wherein the calling party receives audio information corresponding to textual information from the called party, the audio information being based on preference information that includes either a language-related preference for the calling party, a language and a dialect used by the called party, voice characteristic imparted to synthesized speech in the audio information, sound based upon occurrence of an emoticon provided in the textual information, an identifier to be presented in textual information to the called party as a screen name identity representing the calling party, or spelling of words used in the textual information.