>The push API is pretty awesome, the key difference between it and websockets in term of what it offers is this bit: > > A push service allows a webapp server

>The push API is pretty awesome, the key difference between it and websockets in term of what it offers is this bit: > > A push service allows a webapp server to send messages to a webapp, regardless of whether the webapp is currently active on the user agent. Actually, the difference you describe is what Server-Sent Events [1] already provide: one-way notifications vs bidirectional communication with websockets. This spec, rather, would standardize an API for a single-connection (read: better battery life) push server that third party webapps can use in the same way Google Cloud Messenger is used by third-party application servers for android apps. [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/eventsource/ http://www.w3.org/TR/eventsource/