Patent ID: 8838751

Claim:
A method, comprising: maintaining location data in at least one server, the location data representing a current location of individual ones of a plurality of service providers; periodically updating, via the at least one server, the current location of the individual ones of the plurality of service providers in the at least one server by facilitating interaction between an application in the at least one server and a plurality of service provider clients to obtain a location of individual ones of the plurality of service provider clients; associating, via the at least one server, the individual ones of the plurality of service providers with at least one of a plurality of services; authenticating, via the at least one server, a user; receiving, via the at least one server, a current location of the user in response to authenticating the user; prompting, from the at least one server, the user to request a service; in response to receiving a request from the user for the service, identifying, via the at least one server, a subset of the plurality of service providers for which the current location of individual ones of the subset of the plurality of service providers results in a service response time to the current location of the user that is within a predefined limit, wherein the service response time is calculated based upon a distance between the individual ones of the subset of the plurality of service providers and the user, and a mode of transportation associated with the individual ones of the subset of the plurality of service providers; and sending a listing of the subset of the plurality of service providers from the at least one server to the user, responsive to a receipt of the request, to facilitate a selection of one of the plurality of service providers to render the service, wherein the listing of the subset of the plurality of service providers comprises a geographical location of the individual ones of the subset of the plurality of service providers, the mode of transportation associated with the individual ones of the subset of the plurality of service providers, and information about the individual ones of the subset of the plurality of service providers, wherein the information comprises a name and rating of the individual ones of the subset of the plurality of service providers.