Christopher D Harvey

US Patent:

7509377, Mar 24, 2009

Filed:

Jun 26, 2003

Appl. No.:

10/609183

Inventors:

Christopher Forrest Harvey - San Francisco CA, US
Matthew New - Santa Clara CA, US
Ramkumar Ramani - San Jose CA, US

Assignee:

Yahoo! Inc. - Sunnyvale CA

International Classification:

G06F 15/16

US Classification:

709206, 709203, 709204, 709217, 709225, 709236

Abstract:

An embodiment of the present invention for passing, by one or more application servers, images from a broadcaster computer to a first viewer computer may include receiving a request to initiate one or more server connections between the broadcaster computer and the first viewer computer. The connections being for passing an image and an instant message. The method also includes facilitating a peer-to-peer connection between the broadcaster computer and the first viewer computer. The peer-to-peer connection being for passing the image. The method also includes facilitating communication of an image over the peer-to-peer connection instead of the server connections, thereby conserving bandwidth of the servers.