My coworker recently posted about the real-time web, some of its great potential, and some of the challenges in integrating it into business websites.  I have to say though, to me some of the promise of that buzzword threatens to exclude some of the things that make social media sites so different than their predecessors. 

 

Here's what I mean: one of the things I like most about Facebook, for example, is its ability to construct impromptu sidebar conversations.  In one sense, this is nothing new, as it is really just forum functionality - I make a post, someone comments on it (and possibly signs up for notification), someone else makes a post, perhaps the author chimes in again, etc.  It is a little node of conversation that gets placed into a conceptual room on the server.

 This is different with Facebook due to the timeliness of the communication, but more importantly due to improvisational threading.  Rather than rely on someone proactively posting a "thread," they use a basic element of social interaction - a general post to everyone you know, and as people comment on it, two things happen.  (1) A collaboration of your "friends" and the poster's "friends" is created ad hoc.  This can create interesting synergies, yet the conversation remains fairly civil as these people have some relation to you, albeit once removed (2) The original post slowly becomes buried as the overall churn of posting in the main "feed" continues.  Thus like the forum, a seperate conversational space is created.  I would argue that being "real-time" has little to do with the appeal of this functionality.  The alure is instead a utilization of classic principles of user interface.  Build the app for the people don't try to get the people to mold to the app...