US Patent 7818020 System and method for joining communication groups

Systems and methods for supporting group communications are provided. A group list management server (GLMS) stores communications group definitions in documents, such as extensible mark-up language (XML) documents. The communications group can include communication addresses for different types of communication applications, including electronic mail, voice telephone, data, instant messaging, voice dispatch, short messaging service (SMS), and multimedia service (MMS). Various methods for joining communications groups are provided.