I could easily lose my geek cred and early adopter license for this post, but I think a lot of non-early adopters have been wondering, what is the real-time web for? Alexander Van Elsas has an excellent post “calling bs on the real time web.” Basically, he just does not know what use it has, but he sums up the problem nicely:

Real-time web is a publisher’s thing, not a consumer thing. There are few situations, usually disasters,  where I might be in need of a real-time web. The geek will tell you that it is great to be able track what people are saying when a plane crashes, Obama is inaugurated, or a famous pop star dies. The problem I have with those examples is that life isn’t like that every day.

So, outside of emergencies and major breaking news, do people know what to use the real time web for? The mass consumer likely does not. This can be seen in the comments that Facebook receives as they inch closer to becoming the main real-time platform. Why have “the masses” not been converted into real-time zealots? This is probably due to the lack of a defining pr