4 ms·

The Man Who Made Gmail Says Real-Time Conversation is What's Next

20 points by robg 18y ago

bkrausz 18y ago
Unless I'm mistaken, long polling is not a new concept, as this article says...it's been around for quite a while.
- kwamenum86 18y ago
  Yeah...pb did not invent long polling. It also goes by the names reverse-AJAX and Comet and has actually been around for quite a while.
catone 18y ago
This was already on HN when it was on RWW a couple of days ago. ;) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=589049 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=589049
- pj 18y ago
  Do you think you could measure something by the frequency of reposts? There must be some function with a component of memory and freshness of content that could tell us something about the course of a news aggregator.
  - ivankirigin 18y ago
    It could just be the lag between syndicating RWW to the NYT.
    - pj 18y ago
      It's like meme travel. How do we measure the velocity of a meme? We'd have to get the position and ..? Can meme's have a location? Would it be some aggregate of its locations in the minds of those conscious of its existence? It definitely tells us something about the relationship between populations of social networks. NYT, RRW, HN and they cross into physical realms as well and those take time to print and move between physical bodies. So this goes back to the disappearance of technology because as time approaches infinity, meme velocity approaches the speed of light due to the increasing transparency of the technology medium, like light in a vacuum is the fastest it can go.
- pg 18y ago
  I left it up even though it's a dupe because it got enough upvotes that a lot of people must not have seen it the first time.
andreyf 18y ago
Hm, then in that sense, FF is more of a competitor to HN or Reddit than it is for Twitter. Never thought of it that way, but it makes sense...
pj 18y ago
as time approaches infinity, the opacity of the layer between the digital world and the analog (biological/evolutionary) world approaches zero.
- smanek 18y ago
  ? Maybe I'm being a bit dim, but I have no idea what that means. Care to expand?
  - andreyf 18y ago
    It seems a complicated way of saying something surprisingly insightful. Here's how I interpret it: our "real" world is being increasingly shadowed by a "digital" world, where information instantaneously available and immediately actionable. Right now, that information now includes weather, game scores, stock values, bank accounts, people's whereabouts and activities, pictures/videos, and conversations. Soon (security being one Big Problem to solve), it will include people's blood pressure, heart rate, your bath's temperature and water level, your home's water consumption, your caloric intake, number of steps you've walked, the book you're reading, etc. By immediately actionable, I mean a ubiquitous spread of what we now call API's - although I imagine they won't just be for applications or programs. Your iPhone will control the elevators you're in (and your children will have trouble imagining the insanitary notion of touching buttons a dozen other people have touched), start your car, fill your bath, serve as your communications tool, etc. Already, the first thing I do after turning off my alarm (before getting out of bed) is check/answer my e-mails. That's kind of neat, if you sit and think about it :)
  - pj 18y ago
    what andreyf said. In longer words, what I meant was that as technology advances, we are going to see less and less of the distinction between it and our own skin, or our own blood. Our blood may not even be what we think of blood today, but a synthetic blend of water, nutrients, gases, hormones, protiens, and other items that our bodies need. For example, there was a time when everyone wore spectacles. That technology that improved the wearers' vision was obvious and on the face. Now some people wear contacts, which most of the time are invisible except to the wearer. In the future, our eyes will be replaced with advanced photo optics, night vision, and a frame storage rate much higher than our minds can currently comprehend. We'll play it back like Tivo today, which will also be a thing of the past as well. We'll just play movies on our mind. The goal of the technology is to make itself invisible -- an intangible benefit to the quality of life. The kind of quality you just "get" but don't have to quantify, because it is transparent.
mynameishere 18y ago
Real time conversations are so 50,000 BC - 1970 AD
jacktang 18y ago
Real-Time is next big thing, not only for conversation.
cookiecaper 18y ago
Indeed, the concepts of Instant Messaging and Aggregation are revolutionary and have no known widely-used implementations.
vicaya 18y ago
Real time conversation/communication is overrated and has much lower S/N ratio than async email/comment etc.

20 points by robg 18y ago

bkrausz 18y ago

Unless I'm mistaken, long polling is not a new concept, as this article says...it's been around for quite a while.

kwamenum86 18y ago
Yeah...pb did not invent long polling. It also goes by the names reverse-AJAX and Comet and has actually been around for quite a while.

catone 18y ago

This was already on HN when it was on RWW a couple of days ago. ;) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=589049 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=589049

pj 18y ago
Do you think you could measure something by the frequency of reposts? There must be some function with a component of memory and freshness of content that could tell us something about the course of a news aggregator.
- ivankirigin 18y ago
  It could just be the lag between syndicating RWW to the NYT.
  - pj 18y ago
    It's like meme travel. How do we measure the velocity of a meme? We'd have to get the position and ..? Can meme's have a location? Would it be some aggregate of its locations in the minds of those conscious of its existence? It definitely tells us something about the relationship between populations of social networks. NYT, RRW, HN and they cross into physical realms as well and those take time to print and move between physical bodies. So this goes back to the disappearance of technology because as time approaches infinity, meme velocity approaches the speed of light due to the increasing transparency of the technology medium, like light in a vacuum is the fastest it can go.
pg 18y ago
I left it up even though it's a dupe because it got enough upvotes that a lot of people must not have seen it the first time.

andreyf 18y ago

Hm, then in that sense, FF is more of a competitor to HN or Reddit than it is for Twitter. Never thought of it that way, but it makes sense...

pj 18y ago

as time approaches infinity, the opacity of the layer between the digital world and the analog (biological/evolutionary) world approaches zero.

smanek 18y ago
? Maybe I'm being a bit dim, but I have no idea what that means. Care to expand?
- andreyf 18y ago
  It seems a complicated way of saying something surprisingly insightful. Here's how I interpret it: our "real" world is being increasingly shadowed by a "digital" world, where information instantaneously available and immediately actionable. Right now, that information now includes weather, game scores, stock values, bank accounts, people's whereabouts and activities, pictures/videos, and conversations. Soon (security being one Big Problem to solve), it will include people's blood pressure, heart rate, your bath's temperature and water level, your home's water consumption, your caloric intake, number of steps you've walked, the book you're reading, etc. By immediately actionable, I mean a ubiquitous spread of what we now call API's - although I imagine they won't just be for applications or programs. Your iPhone will control the elevators you're in (and your children will have trouble imagining the insanitary notion of touching buttons a dozen other people have touched), start your car, fill your bath, serve as your communications tool, etc. Already, the first thing I do after turning off my alarm (before getting out of bed) is check/answer my e-mails. That's kind of neat, if you sit and think about it :)
- pj 18y ago
  what andreyf said. In longer words, what I meant was that as technology advances, we are going to see less and less of the distinction between it and our own skin, or our own blood. Our blood may not even be what we think of blood today, but a synthetic blend of water, nutrients, gases, hormones, protiens, and other items that our bodies need. For example, there was a time when everyone wore spectacles. That technology that improved the wearers' vision was obvious and on the face. Now some people wear contacts, which most of the time are invisible except to the wearer. In the future, our eyes will be replaced with advanced photo optics, night vision, and a frame storage rate much higher than our minds can currently comprehend. We'll play it back like Tivo today, which will also be a thing of the past as well. We'll just play movies on our mind. The goal of the technology is to make itself invisible -- an intangible benefit to the quality of life. The kind of quality you just "get" but don't have to quantify, because it is transparent.

mynameishere 18y ago

Real time conversations are so 50,000 BC - 1970 AD

jacktang 18y ago

Real-Time is next big thing, not only for conversation.

cookiecaper 18y ago

Indeed, the concepts of Instant Messaging and Aggregation are revolutionary and have no known widely-used implementations.

vicaya 18y ago

Real time conversation/communication is overrated and has much lower S/N ratio than async email/comment etc.