Comments on: “Real Time”: Overhyped or Problem Solver?

By: jimtybur

jimtybur — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:15:41 +0000

Hi Alexander, thx for the comment. Have you seen any needs emerge yet since your last post?

By: Alexander van Elsas

Alexander van Elsas — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 05:40:06 +0000

Hi Jim,

I like your post. It’s got balance. I wrote mine a while back because I felt there were just to many bs arguments from us geeks to justify the need for a real-time web.
Don’t get me wrong. I think the technology development in itself is interesting and useful. But it is a technology looking for a need. There isn’t a real need that currently justifies the technology yet.

By: jimtybur

jimtybur — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 04:48:18 +0000

Good point Chris, any specific examples come to mind around interaction and people as it pertains to real time in the way you are thinking about it? Online mmorpgs or social gaming perhaps?

By: Chris Yeh

Chris Yeh — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 04:35:37 +0000

I still feel like the key to real-time is interaction with other people.

Bottom line, the only things that make real-time useful are immediacy (e.g. Twitter on current events) and interaction (e.g. instant feedback in the form of replies).

Immediacy is limited to a few specific use cases (StockTwits is a great example), but interaction has many more applications.

While everyone focuses on the technology behind real-time, ultimately, real-time is about people.