Comments on: Why I wrote about a reasonable time Web

By: Mark Dykeman

Mark Dykeman — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 09:04:41 +0000

I'd never considered push vs pull before; it makes the current Web a bit more understandable to me now. Man, that would be a big change.

By: Michael Kozakewich

Michael Kozakewich — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:45:58 +0000

I'm wondering how push notifications will change things. Instead of relying on intermittent polling, protocols like PubSubHubbub will allow applications to quickly receive messages without all the overhead of constant polling. I imagine Twitter could then rescale the API limits, because the vast amount of users would just be receiving a tweet or two every couple minutes, instead of requesting zero tweets every thirty seconds.

Once server-push technologies mature, the entire web could become real-time. I think we'll need more ways to sort that flood of information; email and texts just aren't adequate.
Maybe a Twitter-like feed of all texts, emails, tweets, posts, and comments that you're following?

By: Mark Dykeman

Mark Dykeman — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 15:36:47 +0000

Ah. I don't use cell phones for mobile computing and I don't have a PDA, so those are some things that I didn't consider. It's all good knowledge.

By: Ian M Rountree

Ian M Rountree — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 12:49:58 +0000

In a lot of cases it may be. But I set up a skip-inbox filter for comments a long time ago, when receiving 38 Disqus notices at once from a single thread caused my phone to apoplexy and cry uncle (crash). I still check them, but the process feels like an app, rather than emails now, which is actually a bit more enjoyable. You know, for me.

By: Mark Dykeman

Mark Dykeman — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 09:41:17 +0000

You know, you bring up an excellent point about blog comments that I hadn't considered. However, blog comments do trigger E-Mail notifications, which are generally quite fast. Maybe that's sufficient?

By: Ian M Rountree

Ian M Rountree — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 05:00:16 +0000

I wonder if there would be a use for some form of API set to handle notifications of these kinds? Twitter's nice and all, but you're right – I stopped machinegun page refreshes months ago when switched to TweetDeck. Still, in part because of my exposure to Twitter and my personal reliance on IM clients (five on my BlackBerry alone), speed of delivery is a big deal – but ONLY when matched by appropriate notification. I still can't convince WordPress for BB to let me know when there are new comments – nor is there a Disq.us application.

I think centralised notification could bridge a lot of the gap between the things we need to be real-time, and the things we need to be closer to email-time. RSS does a good job of this from its direction, but not every aspect of a website or community is RSS-able.