Importance

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Abstract

A call center system allows a representative and a user to jointly browse World Wide Web content while simultaneously conducting a voice conversation over either a circuit switched or packet switched network. A user may initiate a joint browsing, or synchronous collaboration, session by accessing a web page associated with the call center. A call center server downloads a user applet to the user's computer. The user applet communicates state information about the user computer's browser display, or user view, to the server. The server stores this state information. The server then downloads a service applet to the browser of a selected call center representative. The service applet generates a service view including a representation of the user view and a script frame that controls the representation of the user view. The representative may, for example, alter the representation of the user view by selecting a hyperlink or entering information into an HTML form. The service applet communicates these alterations to the server. The user applet periodically polls the server to detect the representatives alterations to the representation of the user view and updates the user view accordingly. In a similar manner, the user applet conveys to the server the user's alterations to the user view so the representative computer's representation of the user view may be updated. Although only the single user and representative case is described here, multiple users and multiple representatives may conduct a single conference.

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First Claim