I've been always wondering: what has the real-time web brought to us? Speed? Effiency? More fiends? More knowledge? Happiness? It's certain that a single word or sentence can not paint all the colors of real-time web.
Months before I searched the definition w.r.t. "real-time" on Wikipedia, it says:
Real-time web is the concept of searching for and finding information online as it is produced.
but now it has a better definition:
The real-time web is a set of technologies and practices which enable users to receive information as soon as it is published by its authors, rather than requiring that they or their software check a source periodically for updates.
Real-time is not new
I should say in no way real-time web is new to us. In the early stage of the Internet, online chat room is just as popular as how Twitter is today. Users can send and receive messages in real-time manner under a normal connection. Real-time chatting is so addictive that people could stay in the chat room 24 hours a day,and for 2 or 3 days without sleeping.
Before the buzz-up of the real-time concept，people are actually experiencing real-time every day when they are using the instant message tools, such as Gtalk,QQ or MSN.
It is the real-time publishing of RSS feed that brings "real-time" to the spotlight on the stage, yes, this is the highway to replace the old road for the internet information transportation system.
Friendfeed has made remarkable contribution to the real-time buzz-up. On 2008/10/16 friendfeed real-time mode was online,which has shaped the UI of what most real-time sites look like today.
Twitter had been playing with real-time search for long time and finally release the real-time search feature on 2009/4/30.
Real-time is fast but fast≠good
Real-time web is not a sheer innovation for today, because it's not new, and because it's just the increase of speed. Sometimes when people don't know how to create something new,a new struture or a new model, they go back to improve the speed of the existing sytems.
Meanwhile being fast is not always good. Eating too fast, you may choke. Sending a formal report to your boss via a MSN message, you'll probably get criticized for your communication method. Type "Will you marry me" on QQ to your beloved, can't imagine it will work. Communication is so complicated that speed is just one factor, sometimes a minor factor to the final effect.
Technology has been always focused on improving the speed of communication, from war flame to letter, telegraph to telephone, email to instant message, now the real-time web.
It's funny to observe that real-time is probably the ultimate speed that the technology could achieve. A message that is faster than "real-time" is either un-real or un-acceptible :) Yes, we see a limit in this direction, just like no speed can be faster than the light speed.
-tbc
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