Social Media Moves To Real Time: Facebook Joins The Fray
Human being is an impatient species. We can’t get our information fast enough. With the introduction of real time search, Twitter updates are blazing fast, even breaking the news before the other traditional outlets. FriendFeed new interface too updates in real-time. With such information hungry users out there, it was just a matter of time before the real time services race boiled over. Experts strongly (and rightly) believe that real time conversation is going to be the next milestone on the internet and it’s going to shape its future for many years to come.
Exactly one week ago, Facebook dived into the real time fray with the introduction of live updates on the Facebook home page. Facebook reverted back to the live stream feature which was removed during its home page redesign. When friends post new content or update their status, a section under the update bar appears that prompts you to ask whether you want to show new posts. Once clicked, these new posts appear. This real time access makes information easily available without bombing you with automatic live updates.
Today, Facebook has rolled out popup alerts over the chat box which gives you instant notification if anyone writes on your wall etc. This notification feature was available before as a small button at the right bottom corner where you could find a list of all updates.
This move from the popular social networking site is being welcomed as one more baby step towards a more complete real time service. But it can backfire on Facebook too, mainly for the following reasons:
- Notifications include a lot of spam from applications installed.
- I mean how many times have you been poked, hugged or kissed by long forgotten contacts?
- The constant stream of popups in such cases can be a nuisance to follow.
- The real disadvantage of real time comes in picture here, how do you filter the important from the spam?
The question right now is not whether real time is the thing of the future, but rather how to use real time to find blazing fast, yet RELEVANT information.
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