Real-time web? Real-time search? No, it is WAR!

Posted by Mickaël Rémond on December 16, 2009

Recently, there has been a buzz around real time searching.  Start-ups like Collecta and OneRiot, together with big names like Google, Yahoo! and Bing, have added a real time feature to their search engines. As a result, the phrase "real time search engine" has emerged and has been reused many times by the media.

The problem is that this does not mean anything! Real time searches do not exist. You search in a mass of existing data, generated in the past.  The search engines, based on different relevant algorithms, will return a sorted list of results matching your request. But these results relate to information created in the past, not the present.

What real time search start-ups do is "real time filtering".  They plug into various streams of data from one end.  They use your query term to filter this incoming stream and finally add new matching content to your result page.  No doubt, this is filtering a stream of new data, this time the present, not the past.

Why does it matter? Because real time search and real time filtering do not compete but complement each other. You cannot say real time filtering start-ups compete with Google.  They provide a different service satisfying different needs, which is to get instant and fresh data, filtered out of massive streams.

Google understands this. They recently decided to add real-time news results to their search results page, when configured with the right options. Basically, you switch to a mode where the latest results are relevant to you personally. That way, new real-time sources matching your current search will get through the filter to update your search results in real-time.

Where does this lead?  What Google proposes is only the beginning. It is done in a robust but still awkward way. The organisation is moving toward a deep integration between the history (existing data, the past) and real time content (new data, the present), to help you make accurate decisions based on the latest events.  That's information-augmented reality. That's web-augmented reality.

At ProcessOne, we call this Web Augmented Reality or WAR. This is a carefully crafted blend of historical data with new relevant data. You have the reality (what has happened), and this is enriched with new sources of information, updated and filtered in real time.

As defined by Wikipedia, Augmented Reality (AR) is a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment, whose elements are merged with (or augmented by) virtual computer-generated imagery, creating a mixed reality.

Web Augmented Reality is the same concept, but applied to data as the initial information source, instead of imagery.  This data is then supplemented with new sources of information which are filtered and updated, an finally added to the base of existing data, with an overlay.

Web, Web 2.0, real-time web... These are just different stages of evolution that are masking the true underlying movement which is WAR and the browser playing an increasingly important role in communications.  This evolution will be of real benefit to the user who will be able to communicate and collaborate in ‘true’ real-time. What this will mean and what it will enable will begin to become clear in 2010.

Would you like to get involved in further discussion about the real time web and collaboration?  This topic will be discussed in Paris on December17th, in the first ProcessOne "Sea Beyond" event! We will demo labs products implementing the concept of WAR aka Web Augmented Reality.

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