Applying the Real-Time Web in the Enterprise

Written by Alex Williams / October 15, 2009 6:27 PM / 5 Comments

Microblogging represents the first wave in the enterprise. Now the questions is what represents the second wave and how adoption will occur.

The issue of the second wave came back up again and again in "Applying The Real-Time Web in the Enterprise," at the ReadWrite Real-Time Web Summit today.

But though the first wave has had its impact, the group has questions about how quick the adoption has been.

Those that are adopting social technologies often already use tools like Twitter. For the uninitiated, the technology is a bit mystifying and since it is optional, the adoption is not as great as it could be. The answer is not to clone Twitter but to find the application that really works for the enterprise user.

The gap goes beyond microblogging and into the general realm of social technologies. For instance, mashups arose as an example. A woman in human resources may not have any interest in creating a mashup. Her views may change if i is not presented as a mashup and if she is assisted by a business analyst or IT worker who is familiar with the technology.

It's the people with the expertise who have in some ways always been using real-time technologies. IRC channels, for instance, were originally used by IT to keep updated about projects. It's a tool similar to instant messaging and activity streams of the real-time web, But it had pretty much been inaccessible to most business users.

A new generation of user interfaces are changing this dynamic. Tools that had been inaccessible are now fashioned in a manner that users understand. People use the social web. They get the notion of the status update. The enterprise applications that have adopted this style are the technologies that get better use.

Machine-to-machine technologies that integrate the social web may help close the gap. These are tools that people are required to use for projects. By adding a "people" element, social applications may have more use for the business person.

Still, the real-time web can not be viewed only in terms of the office person working on their desktop.

Such a large percentage of the workforce are out in the field. Their use of mobile devices for establishing geo-presence is an area that should further develop, especially with the continued adoption of smart phones.

Comments

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Companies should know at least the companies visiting their website in real time and their interest.
Like http://www.LEADSExplorer.com/en/le/home.html
That's a practical real-time application.

Posted by: engago team | October 16, 2009 2:05 AM

thanks for share

Posted by: firma rehberi | October 16, 2009 5:33 AM

CubeTree is a great enterprise tool which takes the best of consumer social network experiences and makes them available within the enterprise.

Posted by: Dale | October 16, 2009 5:36 AM

** Global Brain **

The next real time enterprise & social web service is "global brain" :-).
Connecting social and enterprise relations on a deep level. In other words executing rather than simply messaging. Running all these interactions as part of deep relations in real time: collecting monies, administration, knowledge expression etc. etc. all in one structure rather than eco system of disparate systems.

** Real Time **

What does real time mean? On line banking transactions are definitively real time. This is a very simplistic example even though it has its multitude of challenges. What happens in this example is that the data/information is real time. The rules of how to act on this data is fairly static and changes by reprogramming banking system and then putting it live. So, the information is real time but not knowledge. In the modern world knowledge is changing at an ever faster rate and the systems are having problems coping with this complexity. There is a need for a dramatic departure from current information technology to enable managing this complexity as well as to allow for real time knowledge systems - when some one commits knowledge transaction it is executed in real time and behavior of the system is modified instantly - not by having 3 month programming development. We believe that this can be achieved only with the use of semantic technologies.

Pawel Lubczonok
ThoughtExpress

Posted by: pawel lubczonok | October 16, 2009 11:15 PM