Patent ID: 8533284

Claim:
A communications system, comprising a number of communication portals, each having a non-transitory machine-readable medium with an instance of a messenger client installed thereon, communicatively coupled to be served by a remote server thereby permitting users utilizing said messenger client instances installed on said media to directly communicate with one another, the communications being facilitated through a user interface that includes: channel windows displayed within a first messenger client instance installed on a first non-transitory machine-readable medium, the channel windows representative of communication channels between the various users; and a plurality of images displayed within the first messenger client instance; wherein the first messenger client instance receives user input that causes a first image from the plurality of images to be dragged from the plurality of images and dropped onto a first channel window associated with a second messenger client instance installed on a second non-transitory machine-readable medium, wherein upon said user input, the first messenger client instance automatically causes the remote server to send references to both the first image and the plurality of images to the second messenger client instance, and wherein the second messenger client instance fully downloads both the first image and the plurality of images and displays the first image and the plurality of images, and wherein the second messenger client instance does not display the plurality of images that was displayed within the first messenger client instance until the second messenger client instance has downloaded the first image and the plurality of images.