Real-world examples of the real-time web

  • Real-time data collection is letting scientists find colleagues, related and recommended research in a matter of hours, instead of months or years, using software from a UK company called Mendeley. Mendeley is like iTunes or Last.fm for scientific research, the company even has the founder of Last.fm on its team. There will be someone from Mendeley at the Summit, too.
  • Warner Brothers uses an Adobe AIR app they built to track traffic on artists’ websites, media mentions and more, in real time. Catching data spikes in real time allows them to turn on a dime with marketing and product strategies.
  • The RedCross national headquarters (and I’m sure a lot of local offices) use real-time systems to monitor breaking news about disasters around the world and co-ordinate volunteers. Work that used to take weeks is now done in minutes or hours – that means saved lives. Many people at RedCross HQ are subscribers to Breaking News Online, a fascinating service founded by a teenager in the Netherlands and now run by a small, distributed team of scrappy reporters around the world.
    • via marshallk.com

    ReadWriteWeb's Marshall Kirkpatrick's examples provide what I suspect is only a taste of what will be presented at his Real Time Web Summit. I wish I could go, but will be in Vegas for BlogWorldExpo. I'm sure Marshall will do some top-notch reporting on the Summit, though, so I hope to still catch some of the content.

    About

    I'm Shel Holtz, principal of Holtz Communication + Technology, consulting with organizations to enhance their online communications since 1996. I have more than 30 years of experience in organizational communication, including stints as corporate communications director at two Fortune 500 companies. I'm a founding fellow of the Society for New Communications Research (SNCR) and a fellow and Accredited Business Communicator through the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC).

    I've written or co-written six books on communication, including "Public Relations on the Net," "Corporate Conversations," "Blogging for Business" and "Tactical Transparency."

    Since January 2005, I have co-hosted the twice-weekly PR-focused podcast, "For Immediate Release," with my colleague and friend, Neville Hobson.

    For information on consulting and speaking engagements, visit my website, www.holtz.com.

    TwitterFacebookFlickrYoutubeDelicious