Real-Time Streams

The growth of the Internet has been astonishing, both in terms of its breadth of geographic cover, but also the staggering number of digital objects that have been made to populate the various webpages, databases, and archives that run on the servers. This has traditionally been a rather static affair, however, there is evidence that we are beginning to see a change in the way in which we use the web, and also how the web uses us. This is known as the growth of the so-called ‘real-time web’ and represents the introduction of a technical system that operates in realtime in terms of multiple sources of data fed through millions of data streams into computers, mobiles, and technical devices more generally. Utilising Web 2.0 technologies, and the mobility of new technical devices and their locative functionality, they can provide useful data to the user on the move. Additionally, these devices are not mere ‘consumers’ of the data provided, they also generate data themselves, about their location, their status and their usage. Further, they provide data on data, sending this back to servers on private data stream channels to be aggregated and analysed. That is, 1.The web is transitioning from mere interactivity to a more dynamic, real-time web where read-write functions are heading towards balanced synchronicity. The real-time web… is the next logical step in the Internet’s evolution.2.The complete disaggregation of the web in parallel with the slow decline of the destination web.3.More and more people are publishing more and more “social objects” and sharing them online. That data deluge is creating a new kind of search opportunity (Malik 2009).