Patent ID: 8015245

Claim:
A method of communicating source user information to a mobile communications device, the method comprising: recording, in a datastore of an aggregation server, personalized source user information including an uploaded photograph file provided by a source user, the photograph file comprising an image captured by a camera and to be accessed from the aggregation server by recipient users without active communication from the source user according to user settings specified by the source user, the user settings: identifying the source user by at least one of name and telephone number, identifying a location of the source user, identifying each of the recipient users by at least one of name and telephone number, referencing the source user information provided by the source user for receipt by the recipient users, and specifying an effect overlay selected by the source user for use when the photograph file is accessed by recipient users; transmitting, through a web service of the aggregation server, a list of users for display on the mobile communications device of a particular recipient user, the list of users comprising identifiers for the source user and other users having accessible personalized information; receiving, through the web service of the aggregation server, a request from the-particular recipient user via the mobile communications device in response to selection of an identifier for the source user from the list of users; associating the particular recipient user with the source user for providing the particular recipient with the personalized source user information provided by the source user; accessing, from the datastore of the aggregation server, the personalized source user information including the photograph file provided by the source user; requesting, by the aggregation server, supplemental information from a remote web service based on the location identified in the user settings of the source user; receiving, at the aggregation server, the supplemental information from the remote web service; selecting, by the aggregation server, one or more effect images associated with the effect overlay selected by the source user for use when the photograph file is accessed by recipient users, wherein: each effect image has a non-zero transparency level in at least a portion of the effect image to expose a portion of the image of the photograph file for viewing when overlaying the image of the photograph file, and the one or more effect images are selected based on the supplemental information received from the remote web service; and transmitting, through the web service of the aggregation server, the personalized source user information for display of the image of the photograph file provided by the source user and for display of the one or more effect images overlaying the image of the photograph file provided by the source user for viewing on the mobile communications device of the particular recipient user.