To facilitate a call between a user of a mobile device and a host of the call, a location of the mobile device is obtained. Based on the obtained location, a device identifier for a local device is automatically retrieved, wherein the local device is located at or around the obtained location. A dial-out request is sent to a conference system requesting that the conference system establish a communication link between the local device associated with the retrieved device identifier and a remote device associated with the host.

A system registers participant information and inter-participant relationship information, and then, at variable times, selects two or more participants with a pre-existing relationship and attempts to establish a communication link between them. At least one of the participants is notified that the communication link will be attempted, shortly before the attempt is made. The identities of the selected participants are withheld from at least one of the participants (and potentially from all of the participants), so the call is a partial surprise (i.e., the participant may know the set of possible people from whom the call could be, but does not know exactly which person or people are calling until he answers the call). A number of applications are described and claimed.

Operations included may provide receiving event registration messages from at least a portion of end users to register the end users for an event and storing the event registration messages in a registration list file. Establishing a connection for each of the portion of the plurality of end users via an interactive voice response (IVR) application may also occur. The IVR application is then dropped and the connection is maintained via a port on a network element to transfer the event data from the network element to the portion of the registered end users.

Systems and methods are disclosed for managing conference calling using a URL assigned to a conference call organizer. One method includes receiving, from a conference call organizer, a request to be placed into a conference call associated with a URL assigned to the organizer; and receiving, from a prospective conference call participant, a request to be placed into the conference call associated with the URL. Another method includes receiving, from a first user, through a web page of a URL assigned to the first user, a first phone number at which the first user can be called; receiving, from a second user, through the web page of the URL, a second phone number at which the second user can be called; and initiating phone calls to the first user at the first number and the second user at the second number.

A method and system for providing an audio/video conference includes receiving audio from a moderator via a circuit-switched telephone network, transmitting a representation of the audio to a first listener group via the circuit-switched telephone network, and transmitting a representation of the audio to a second listener group via a packet-switched network. The audio/video conference may be transmitted to the first listener group and the second listener group in real-time or near real-time (e.g., within a few seconds). The method and system may be used with a circuit-switched telephone network such as, for example, a public switched telephone network. Further, the method and system may be used with a packet-switched network such as, for example, the Internet. The method and system further provide synchronization of video data, including slide data, and audio data related to the audio/video conference.

A Multicall telephony system has a first land-line telephone connected to a central switch in a land-line telephone network and a server executing SW on a processor from a non-transitory medium, the server also coupled to the land-line telephone system by a service telephone number. In operation a user dials the service telephone number, and when connected, dials two or more telephone numbers separated by delimiters and followed by a terminator character, and the server, executing the software, dials the two or more telephone numbers separated by delimiters in the call from the first land-line telephone, and connects answered calls in a conference with the call placed by the first land-line telephone.

Methods for operating a meeting coordinator to detect which participant is speaking during a teleconference meeting using a teleconferencing system, having corresponding mobile electronic devices and computer-readable media, comprise: accessing calendaring information concerning the teleconference meeting, the calendaring information including a time of the teleconference meeting, a meeting location, identities of meeting invitees, and contact information for the meeting invitees; automatically setting up the teleconference meeting using the calendaring information to enable the teleconferencing system to connect remotely-located meeting invitees; generating a roster of meeting participants comprising at least some of the meeting invitees; tracking a participation status for the meeting participants; and accessing prerecorded unique digital voice signatures for the meeting invitees.

A method for automatically establishing multi-participant interactions and/or conference calls between users of mobile devices, according to which an interaction establishing application is installed on the mobile device of each participating user and receives for each user, phone numbers of other users defined as his friends and a list of predetermined triggers as conditions for initiating an interaction between users. The application constantly monitors the location of each user's mobile device and upon detecting that one or more of the triggers are met, the application automatically initiates one or more interactions between users that comply with the triggers that are met.

A speech reproduction control system includes a speech reproducer that reproduces speech data in speech, a character reproducer that converts the speech data into characters for reproduction, and a hardware processor that reproduces first speech data and second speech data in parallel, wherein the hardware processor reproduces the first speech data by using the character reproducer, turns off reproduction of the first speech data by the speech reproducer or reproduces the first speech data at a volume lower than a volume for reproduction of the second speech data, and reproduces the second speech data by using the speech reproducer.