Real Time Web

Internet was engineered as a tool to collaborate on stuff (documents, etc. information basically). Its been always social in those terms - of sending letters, documents via the interconnected computers. It was faster than the usual snail mails. It was near 'real-time' delivery. But then, with chat programs - you might argue it was real-time always.

So, whats the new buzz about the real-time web? Well, now its not just - emails flowing around - or documents flowing around. Today, its about working on those documents, information together - at the same time!

Its about 'knowing' where my friends / colleagues are on the planet, which other people are 'near me', what are they having for their breakfast and all of that. - You get the idea.  [Its another question - to question the necessity of twitter updates, the foursquare check-ins and all of that stuff.]

But, its taken almost 20+ years to get to a stage where its possible to do this real-time collaboration on information and grow together!

Its because of all this stuff - the decision making process has to be that quick. Everything you do - has to be done 'NOW' .

With this, have also occurred problems of OVERLOAD of data. And hence, systems which help us make 'sense' of this data streams - is much more important and will play an important role. 

Until now, it was SEARCH for information. now the information will REACH you.

We are now a part of the RECOMMENDATION WEB as consumers. No longer would you *necessarily* search for information you need. The 'onus' goes on to the providers to Reach you!

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Years ago when my dad wanted to purchase a vehicle (scooter) - he went to every dealer in town and inquired and finally decided onto the one he wanted. - He had a fair bit of idea on what was on offer in the market through 'advertisements'. He asked his friends / colleagues about opinions and finally settled on something he liked.

6 months ago - when I wanted to purchase a Car. I 'tweeted' about it. I expressed an interest in knowing about that. I DID NOT SEARCH. I got recommendations / experiences / suggestions from my followers - which helped me make a decision that much faster. I would have loved being contacted by the local service providers for that directly. It will happen for sure. Its not that far. In about a year or two.

I did not go and search for the information. I just expressed desire to know about that information and it reached me. 

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In client / server systems - there are two types of interactions

• PULL - where the client needs to request for information from the server ( - aka SEARCH / FETCH for humans)
• PUSH - where the server sends 'relevant' (earlier agreed upon) data to the clients to work with. - I look at this as- similar to the RECOMMENDATION model.

There can be numerous examples explaining this. The point is we are shifting from the traditional 'look for information' to the 'information gets you' model.

Analytics of 'continuous stream' of data, data mining  and 'searching-for-people-looking-for-that-information'- have a very very important role to play here.

Looking at twitter - the TRENDING topics DO Not make any sense to me any longer - I want topics that are trending among people I follow. -(things I am interested in)

Posted via web from Emerging Technologies