Where does Real-time Web Lead to?(part 1)

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

Find a new place to blog

Since blogbus.com has started to censor the content all over the site, I am moving out to blogger.com, which is still blocked in China.

I've been spending years blogging on blogbus, and it's a great service provider in China which I shall not hesitate to admit, but as Chinese government starts to take horrible grasp over the Internet freedom, many Chinese websites are forced to carry out strict self-censorship just for survival in the business , such as douban.com, blogbus.com.

For me, I was writing about Friendfeed, Twitter, the Internet innovation and the new media in Chinese on blogbus(Nothing but a tree) .I enjoyed a lot using those new tools, joining those great communities, and I shared my thoughts with online friends through blogging. 

Now the Internet innovation is dead in China, people are fighting first for the basic right: the freedom of speech and expression on the Internet,any writing without mentioning the censorship here is not a good blogging. I plan to keep writing about the Internet, the new media and the innovation that improves the effiency of the human society,promotes the value of freedom and fosters the change in China. For these contents, I have no confidence that blogbus.com will let them go freely, so I got to find a new place to blog, even though it may not be read by most of Chinese internet users. 

I shall value the freedom to blog, more than ever..

Me on Friendfeed

Me on Twitter