Web Communication

Technology is there to enable people to do things. So, if you want to write a successful application, it's worth asking what things people like to do! And there's one answer that has proved itself time and time again - people like to communicate.

The killer apps of the internet have always been communication tools - starting with email, moving to webmail, instant messaging, blogging, Twitter streaming, and most recently social networking.

So how far has the web come in enabling communications? I put chart together to work this out.

Communication types

Timing	View	Add	Method
Asynchronous	Private	Private	Notebook
Asynchronous	Private	Public	Email / Voicemail
Asynchronous	Public	Private	Blog
Asynchronous	Public	Public	Wiki
Realtime	Private	Private	Dictaphone, CCTV
Realtime	Private	Public	Instant Message
Realtime	Public	Private	Twitter / TV / Radio / Webcam
Realtime	Public	Public	Phone / video conference

The most obvious thing to note is that every cell in the table has something in it, so there are no obvious gaps - but many are filled with very recent technology, and it's still changing very quickly.

Secondly, the table drives home just how important and useful the Atom Publishing Protocol is - starting from blogging, it is spreading to all the asynchronous types of communication. That shows some foresight from Google, who have based their architecture around the standard.

Thirdly, realtime communications technology seems less mature. That's not a surprise - HTTP was designed for the asynchronous request / response pattern. So it will be interesting to see how this piece develops.