Recording and receiving voice mail with freeform bookmarks

Abstract

Methods, systems, computer program products, and methods of doing business by providing bookmarks for voice mail messages in order to facilitate improved navigation thereof. A bookmark is preferably conveyed by the caller leaving a voice mail message to indicate information such as a change in the topic of the message, or a particular important passage within the message, or perhaps to identify some information for special treatment (such as a telephone number and time of day at which the call can be returned). Once the message has been bookmarked, the listener can navigate the message more efficiently (for example, by listening to a few seconds of each topic and then skipping to the next topic, or by listening only to the special information) and can also perform actions on parts of the voice mail message (such as forwarding only a selected segment to a third party, while keeping the remainder of the message confidential). Optionally, audio cues may be rendered with the voice mail message as it is played to the listener, where audio cues are sounds that are either 'incorporated in' with the audio rendering as a separate (background) audio stream or inserted in-line within the message. (For example, audio cues may change to signify that the bookmarked topics of the message change, or many announce the type of bookmark associated with an upcoming audio message segment).