Where Does Real-Time Matter? In Viewing the Stream or Searching It? (Facebook Bets on the Latter)
"Real-time" - as in the "real-time web" - has certainly become the buzzword du jour. It's even possible that the move of web services to support a real-time, immediate flow of information is what will ultimately define the next version of the web...if you're someone who likes to attach version numbers to something that's in as much constant change as today's Internet, that is. Still, it's easy to see the benefits of real-time in action, especially when it comes to disseminating news...as was apparent when the immediacy of Twitter trumped CNN's coverage of the Iranian elections and subsequent riots.
Yet exactly how a company should integrate "real-time" into their service is something that's not always easy to grasp. It's clear that Facebook, for one, is still trying to figure it out.
Facebook Tests Real-Time Search
In a Facebook blog post, the company announced that a limited, private beta of a new search interface is being rolling out to a small group of folks on the social network. The new interface will allow those fortunate enough to have access to it the ability to search for content from people, organizations, and other public figures as soon as they share it on Facebook. They'll also be able to search through their News Feed for status updates, photos, links, videos, and notes for items being shared by friends, by pages of which they're a fan, or by those who have chosen to leave their profile open. Again, this is described as "up-to-the-minute" search results. In other words, Facebook is testing a real-time search engine.
Ironically, Facebook's other attempt at real-time didn't go quite as well. After March's site redesign which was responsible for the real-time stream of updates on users' homepages, Facebook faced protests by hundreds of thousands of users within days of the revamp. Apparently, those complaints didn't fall on deaf ears. According to a recent article on VentureBeat, Facebook is moving away from that real-time homepage stream, but towards what isn't exactly clear. All we know is that Facebook did acknowledge that their users "missed the News Feed in its former structure."
Real-Time: Good for Search, Not for Streams?
That just goes to show that real-time doesn't always make sense everywhere, in every service. Unlike FriendFeed, who boldly bet on real-time and made it the new default for their stream, mimicking that same feature over on Facebook was a recipe for disaster. (It could be argued that real-time updates don't work on FriendFeed either, but that may be just a personal opinion).
Even in Twitter, where information flows in immediately to the service, the Twitter.com homepage doesn't constantly auto-refresh for you, forcing you to see the updates as they happen. And Twitter desktop clients tend to poll for updates on a scheduled basis...so, not quite real-time there either.
Where real-time does work is search, something we've learned not only from using search.twitter.com but also from using some handy Twitter greasemonkey scripts that add Twitter results to a traditional search. (Here's one for Google and one for Bing).
It's also being rumored that Google may be working on a real-time search engine that would pull in results from Twitter and other microblogging sites. Perhaps "real-time" works in search because the stream is focused on one subject, not a chaotic mass of disjointed thoughts and links. Or then again, maybe it works because even though they're real-time, search results don't move across the screen in a constant flow - you have to refresh the page to see the new ones.
Questions about Real-Time
So does this mean that real-time doesn't work in streams but only in search? Can we just not process a rapidly updated flow quickly enough for it to make any sense? Or does it all come down to some magic number of people we follow that determines how much new input we can stand to see streaming by in real-time? Or maybe the problem is that real-time is simply too raw, without filters we miss seeing the updates that matter the most.
Do you agree? Or do you feel that real-time streams are indeed the future, but unfortunately the masses (as in the majority of Facebook users) just haven't gotten the hang of it yet. Or that real-time is just so new that no one has mastered the ideal UI for following a real-time flow?
It seems like we don't really have all the answers just yet, the only thing to do is experiment and see what works. Just like Facebook is doing now.
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Fast flowing streams--whether the result of search, friend timelines, whatever--are like drinking from a fire hose. These must rely on some type of filtering to provide the lens through which the raw streaming information is consumed.
This is nothing new. The radio spectrum is teeming with information streams that we are incapable of consuming en mass. So are your eyes, for that matter. We use radios to tune into specific "channels" of information to provide a lens on the radio spectrum. Our brain uses clever image processing tricks to provide a lens on the visible light hitting our eyes.
We will continue to evolve (develop) a variety of lenses through which to view digital information streams from Twitter, Facebook, Google, etc. Facebook search, Twitter search, TweetDeck groups, are just three examples of specific lenses. It's not a question of where real-time matters. It matters. It's more a question of which lenses are best suited for different objectives.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, the abuse of the term "real-time" has reached a critical mass. Until a browser can keep a persistent socket open between the server and itself, the closest thing you can get to the REAL real-time is emulating it via long-polling, similar to what Jack Moffit at collecta.com is doing. You need to essentially poll and on the server NOT send a response if there is NOTHING new, and WAIT to send a response until there is something new. That is the closest we can get right now to the REAL real-time. At this point, it appears everyone claiming real-time is using INTERVAL polling where they just constantly hit their servers via XHR (Ajax) requests and whether there is something new OR NOT, a response is sent back...this is NOT real-time.
I guess RWW and Mashable do need to continue to write articles so I'm not bashing the author of this one, but this Facebook is just jumping on the real-time bandwagon. It simply is NOT real-time.
The stream works as long as you are equipped with the tools and apps to deal with the deluge of information that results from trying to drink from it. Google Wave is an example of a protocol/platform which is approaching this from a pragmatic angle.
XMPP is an interesting one as are all the similar presence type protocols. As Joe says above socket connections etc are the limiting factor at the moment. Perhaps servers need to learn to push to IP's which they know are waiting rather than leave them having to keep polling, but that would need the server side apps to take a lot more load.
Interesting subject though so keep writing about it!
Streams need to be real-time enough but you should still be able to interact with them. Like you say, at some point when you have a large enough set of friends, it becomes difficult.
I find real-time search very interesting. Just by following some keywords, I can get pointers to content that others are finding it worth while to comment on. Its a great way of real-time learning. In facebook, search cannot be that useful unless you could search all streams. Not sure if facebook has an option of making your stream search-able and if it is opt-in or opt-out.
I believe that XMPP holds the key to real-time. The browsers need to figure out how it fit it in. Ultimately, I want to sit back and let my web come to me.
"Or that real-time is just so new that no one has mastered the ideal UI for following a real-time flow?"
Well, in a way we made Twazzup because we strongly agree with this 2nd point of view ... for those who have missed it : http://www.twazzup.com
or
http://iran.twazzup.com which we created specially to follow the events in Iran.
Would be more than happy to read your thoughts about it.
Real-time, insofar as a lot of people seem to think it should mean, means there must be two parties present at exactly the moment something is breaking. If you are the "first on site," great. But what does it really mean unless the breaking news is that someone is handing out free money first-come, first-serve? Think back to what traditional media was (and what it did to itself): The story broke, and a few seconds later it's on every "channel," everyone knows about it (that cared to look), and it's ancient history (if you're thinking of real-time as I've defined it above).
All of this depends on you being there. The news, or tweet, or inquiry, or whatever is breaking and out there is out there whether you see it or not.
To summarize: Real-time in either stream or search is in the mind of the beholder. It's all about what is relevant to you.
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