A communication device for rendering one or more conversations. The communication device includes a receiver configured to receive media over a network and an encoder configured to encode media created using the communication device, where the received and encoded media are associated with the one or more conversations. A storage or memory element stores on the device both the received media and the encoded media. A conversation control element is provided for selecting one of the one or more conversations as current and for controlling the rendering of the media of the selected conversation. A rendering element, controlled by the conversation control element, is provided to render the media associated with the selected current conversation on the communication device in either (a) a near real-time mode where the received media associated with the selected current conversation is progressively rendered as it is received or (b) a time shifted mode where the received and encoded media associated with the selected current conversion is rendered at a time after it was encoded or received. The device further includes a transmitter configured to transmit the encoded media associated with the selected current conversation over the network to one or more remote communication devices.