Patent ID: 8438596

Claim:
A method for transmitting contact information, the method comprising: a multimedia device receiving a user's contact information and storing the contact information; the multimedia device receiving particular content comprising at least one of (a) a television program or advertisement that the multimedia device is receiving, (b) recorded content, or (c) content that the multimedia device is receiving over the Internet; the multimedia device receiving, a tag of a particular type, along with the received particular content, that indicates to the multimedia device that an interested party wants to receive the user's contact information; in response to the multimedia device receiving the tag of the particular type, performing: the multimedia device determining a particular interactive icon specified by the tag of the particular type, the particular interactive icon being among a plurality of icons that are stored on the multimedia device, the tag of the particular type comprising a first field identifying the interested party and a second field identifying the particular icon, the first field comprising at least one of a Universal Resource Locator (URL) or an email address of the interested party; in response to the multimedia device determining the particular interactive icon specified by the tag of the particular type, performing: the multimedia device overlaying the particular interactive icon with at least a portion of the received particular content; the multimedia device presenting the received particular content overlaid with the particular interactive icon to request the user's permission to send the user's contact information to the interested party that is associated with the tag; and in response to the multimedia device receiving the user's permission to send the user's contact information to the interested party, the multimedia device sending the user's contact information to the interested party over a network.