Chat redirection mechanism (06-Oct-2009)

This article proposes a method for chat redirection. That means, after a chat is started between contact X and contact Y, any chat participant (or a collaboration server) can redirect the other participant to another contact (third party)

who is

available for chat. This technique enables fast session initialization to the correct contact; it can also save re-typing of information in the chat. Thus as a result it can help producing better and more efficient collaboration results.

The same problem can be solved in two ways:
1. The first user will open a chat to the second person and explain his question. The second user will give "correct" contact details to the first user. The first user will open a new chat to the "correct" person. The first user will introduce himself and explain his question.
2. The first user will open a chat to the second person and explain his question. The second user will initiate a "n-

way"

                                  The second person will introduce the first user to the third user. Then the second user will disconnect from the n-

way chat and leave the first and the third users in a chat alone.

The solution proposed here is better from either of the solutions above because of its simplicity (compared to the first way), and its less formal way (compared to the second way). We believe that it can give better result in terms of collaboration efficiency.

    There are also more usages for chat redirections technique that are explaine...