的流行推动了实时互联网(real-time web)浪潮，实时互联网到底是什么，文章从多个方面剖析了实时互联网的意义。下面针对针对作者提出的“实时互联网是一种新的通信方式”进行思考和研究。
文章引述了Paul Buchheit关于的话：
The open, real-time discussions that occur on FriendFeed are going to become a major new communication medium on the same level as email, IM and blogging.
实际上这种通信方式远不止争得了与email, 即时消息（IM）等平起平坐的地位，文章总结了一下几个特点
- 几乎是一种同步的对话，是一种由最新消息组成的持续的对话流
- 因为是围绕一个主题谈话，读者几乎可以相信是真人在对话，而不是使用自动化工具发送的广告
- 采用一种特殊的对话结构，内容长度受限：140字符
- 使用简便
- 每个消息都是原子消息（atomic message），都是关于特定主题，例如，某个想法，某个链接，某个事件、人物或者公司等
- 含有很多感情色彩，例如：“支持”
基于以上特点，原文作者对实时互联网上的内容的利用价值进行展望：
This discrete nature of Twitter messages means that items, and the sentiments attached to them, can be extracted and then aggregated,
allowing us to measure the activity being generated around a particular
subject and, in some cases, the general feeling about it.
关于extract和aggregate，可以阅读从Social Media海量数据中寻找专家的五大手法和该博客的系列文章，通过聚合也许可以挖掘出重要的商业情报或者营销决策支持数据来。
然后文章与和XBRL（eXtensible Business Reporting Language）类比，他们都用来解构网络内容（deconstruction of content），XBRL，microformat和GooSeeker提出的都 是根据语义解构网络内容，而twitter等将内容解构成原子消息(atomic message）。所有这些解构都使互联网变成了actionable web，actionable已经遇到过多次了，很多时候是在语义网络上下文中出现，表示计算机程序能够自动地针对网络内容采取行动。
也许读者对twitter的赞誉并不以为然，这类实时的会话平台多着呢，为什么大家就这么吹捧twitter等，原文作者给出了一个解释
Unlike IM or email's, (real-time web)
is largely public. Plus the underlying APIs allow third parties to make
use of the data through programs, thus extending the reach of the
content. (Only 20% of Twitter traffic comes from the site itself. The
other 80% comes from users accessing the platform through APIs.)
本人理解，在一个开放式体系下，传播的内容被多次转发和放大后，就很突出了，这主要归功于开放平台和API，这是与其他实时会话平台不同的根本所在。引述作者原话
On the surface, people
consume this body of content simply by reading messages from people
they follow. Much like a stock ticker, these messages scroll across
whatever client they use to access it. When it first
launched -- without the scale, celebrities, and business leaders --
many people failed to see the value of this mode of interaction. It was
interesting, but not compelling. Now with its scale,
the personalities using it, and a better general understanding of how
to use it (less about your breakfast, more insight, reaction, and
commentary), the channels have become fascinating -- overwhelming if
you follow a lot of people, but fascinating nonetheless.