#google realtime

Google suspended its realtime search service as the contract with Twitter to access tweets’ archive expired on 2nd july 2011.

Realtime search used to provide ‘upto-the-second’ updates on topics using various social networking sites, blogs.

Twitter being the major driver of the service, google stopped its service after the contract expiry and has stated to come up with something big soon.

Technological innovations are happening at an unprecedented rate, particularly those that have to do with web services. In the last couple of years we’ve seen social networking and location based services as the basis for many new products. This year the focus is on real-time services. Services that deliver information almost as soon as something happened. In other words, instant gratification.

When real-time is applied on top of the social and/or location based layer, it leads to a richer, more compelling interaction. Google Realtime has for instance its real-time search display results not just from traditional sources by trolling the web, but from facebook and twitter feeds, resulting in a more accurate, powerful query.

Groupon, the flash deal site, has started a Groupon Now for mobile users who are displayed deals based on their location and proximity to relevant deals at that moment in time.

Another mobile app, Geoloki, provides a valuable service to users who are looking for prompts in real-time as they go about their daily lives trying to maintain the delicate yet ever fragile work-life balance.  The user can enable location based reminders for helping them remember picking the milk from the grocery as they are passing by the store. What sets this app apart from other reminder apps is its execution in reminding us, when we truly could make use of a reminder.

We could use real-time products for several different situations , and we are likely to see several of these being marketed this year and beyond. However, real-time can suffer from being too fast for its own good. Remember Google Wave? What is perhaps needed are Right Time services - real-time, timed right according to the context of the product itself.

This morning started like any other morning...until my email stopped working.

I tried to log on to the server to see if email services had stopped. Couldn't get to the server.

Then, I went to the hosting company's web site (Codero). Site timed out, their site was down...no luck.

Next step, I called support. No phone service. Phone just rang and then went to that annoying beeping sound.

Just to make sure my connection to the internet wasn't the issue (although by this point, I didn't think so but was still trying to figure out what to do),

• I did a traceroute (traceroute domainname.com or IP address)

• Using Network Utility (PCs would use the Command prompt).

I could see that my computer's connection to the internet was getting past my Internet Service Provider, so the problems had nothing to do with my connection.

Google...In Realtime.

I googled my server's company and, lo and behold, the "Realtime Results" showed folks tweeting about similar issues.

Enter Twitter.

So, I go to Twitter and checked out Codero's twitter account that's just been buzzing with tweets (had been following one of the server company's other twitter accounts, but alas, not the account that had all of the activity). The issues tweeted included problems with phone system which explains the dead phone lines.

If not for Twitter, by way of Google's Realtime results, I would have been completely in the dark about what was going on through no fault of the hosting company, Codero. This would not have been good.

Codero tweets.

The server company, Codero, in the midst of trying to resolve the situation, which turned out was a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, provided status updates while they were working the issue...almost minute-by-minute updates on their progress. I was so floored and so appreciative. I didn't have to tie up their support lines because I already knew what they were doing, that they were doing everything they could, and they were working as fast as they could.

Many kudos to Codero for their quick response to resolve the issues related to the DDoS and their awesome use of twitter to keep everyone in the loop.

News report from CNET.