Patent ID: 8374179

Claim:
A method comprising, at a first communication device: receiving one or more data objects addressed to a communication group, the communication group being affiliated with a plurality of communication devices in a communication network; sending the one or more data objects to each of the plurality of affiliated communication devices in the communication group via one or more messages addressed to the communication group and recording which users respectively associated with each of the plurality of communication devices in the communication group have received the one or more sent data objects, the data objects comprising one or more of audio, video, and text; after the one or more data objects have been sent to the plurality of communication devices in the communication group, receiving an affiliation request to join the communication group from a second communication device; affiliating the second communication device to the communication group, and responsively: determining, by reference to the recording of which users have received the one or more sent data objects, whether the one or more data objects previously sent to the communication group have already been received by a current user of the second communication device; and responsive to determining that the one or more data objects have not already been received by the current user of the second communication device, providing the one or more data objects to the second communication device by establishing a communication session between the second communication device and the first communication device.