The Real-Time Web

and its Future

Edited by Marshall Kirkpatrick

Contents
1 a. What is the real-time Web? Beyond Twitter and Facebook 2
b. Matrix of issues and companies 4

2. Case studies 5
a. Ted Roden puts real-time into enjoysthin.gs and the New York Times 6
b. Superfeedr: Transforming the legacy Web into real-time 9
c. Real-time as a trigger: Evri’s news-parsing technology 11
d. How Warner Brothers uses the real-time Web in the music business 13
e. Urban Airship does real-time mobile push 15
f. Nozzl Media: Bringing real-time to old media 17
g. Aardvark and the real-time Web of people 20
h. Mendeley and the real-time Web of science 23
i. Black Tonic re-imagines the real-time Web as a controlled experience 26
j. At the Red Cross, the real-time Web saves lives 28

3. Key players 31
a. John Borthwick: thoughtful prince of the real-time Web 32
b. Chris Messina: Rebel with a proposed technical standard 37
c. Brett Slatkin, Brad Fitzpatrick and PubSubHubbub 41
d. Steve Gillmor: The real-time Web’s leading journalist 45
e. Another 15 important people to follow to understand the real-time Web 51

4. Sector overviews 56
a. Stream readers: Interfaces for the real-time flow 57
b. Real-time search: Challenges old and new 68
c. Text analysis and filtering the real-time Web 72

5. Visualizations 75
a. The path to value 76
b. Real-time in conjunction with the static or slower Web 77
c. Information overload 78

6. Selected background articles on real-time technology 79

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