Patent ID: 7756536

Claim:
A method of creating a text based short message service (SMS) message, the method comprising: prompting a user to input data, into respective ones of a plurality of text- and/or character-only SMS fields, including: providing, in a first one of the SMS fields, a mobile identification number that identifies a receiving portable mobile communications device that is the intended recipient of the SMS message; setting, in a second one of the SMS fields, an animation flag that determines whether the SMS message will have animation characteristics applied to it by the receiving portable mobile communications device; providing, in a third one of the SMS fields, a content pointer location that specifies a particular location of a content file, resident on the receiving portable mobile communications device, to be associated with the SMS message; providing, in a fourth one of the SMS fields, text and/or characters to be associated with the SMS message; constructing the SMS message using the input data from the first, second, third, and fourth SMS fields; and prompting the user to input data providing an animation type parameter that specifies how the content file associated with the SMS message will be animated.