Push Technology - The Next Big Thing ?

Assuming that you have Internet access, it's not very complicated. You will need special software on your PC (the alternatives are many), which can be downloaded without any extra charges from the providers' Web sites. The 'push technique' used among the diffrent programs varies a lot, it can be anything from normal e-mail to screen savers that provide access to video clips. [2] The original approach, developed by PointCast, is a screensaver that displays news, sports, weather forecasts, stock quotes, and of course, advertisements whenever your computer enters the screen-save-mode. [3]

Backweb gives the publisher more control over the information, its appearance and any associated advertising. Users can subscribe to different channels - 40 currently - such as the Weather Channel or the Jerusalem Post. Updates called Info paks are sent to the consumer's PC.[4] This 'channel-approach' has been popular among several different software developers.

Also the leading Web browser manufacturers as Netscape and Microsoft are building push capabilities into their coming versions of the browsers.[7] Their involvement represents a cycle that has repeated itself many times in the software industry. Start-ups develope and establish a new technology that is either copied, developed independently or bought by larger IT companies.

Marimba is one company trying to closely tie its Castanet push technology to Java so that users can employ Java tools to build sophisticated push systems that will deliver news and applications to desktops. It would be easy to give many more examples of different companies with their own different push techniques. Still one have to say that there are no global standards within the Webcasting this far, but once there is one it is believed the market will truly explode.[8]

As a good example of the benefits of the Webcasting techniques we can look at Fruit of the Loom,a company that use the push technology offered. Not only can the employees get valuable information pushed from the global Internet, the company can internally, from the company's own channel via intranet servers, push company information, such as product delivery schedules, internal memos and notification of company events. Eighteen Internet coordinators inside the company will gather content for their departments and decide what to publish electronically. Fruit of the Loom will continue to use e-mail for some employee notification, but push will take over many communication tasks. [5]

Knows Problems

For people using the programs at home, the services can only push information to you if you have dialled in. Although, you can set your modem to dial up periodically for fresh information or updated by the click of a mouse, the effect is usually less satisfying than information that appears magically on your screen as in the case with a constant connection.

Another problem are corporate firewalls, designed to protect networks from bad guys on the Internet. Some push delivery systems have problems with these, and some network administrators are only happy to block push content that they fear will jam their systems (it's still hard to estimate the drawbacks of the Webcasting).[6]

More Information