The Stream
Posted by bmackay on May 15, 2009
Move way over web 2.0, it would appear the “real-time web” is here. From twitter to facebook updates, the instant connectivity in the “stream” is the new service-bus between man and machine. Applications like twitter may evolve beyond 140 character sound bites and news updates to become your programming interface to the world. Maybe.
Have you noticed the machine-like syntax has crept into tweets – with its requisite @ and # commands? I’d submit that tweets will be unreadable into the future. (Some already are.) And you now need a users guide to operate twitter - albeit a clever powerpoint from Tim O’Reilly.
Why not tweet appliances as well as friends:
@bbq start @dvr lost @frank #beer
(Of course you would have to follow all your appliances…)
Why stop there. Perhaps you could tweet money by introducing new twitter operators…
@maria %$25
Book and pay for airplane tickets
@AC &YVR &CDG (21/05/09) (30/05/09) !Vegetarian %$2000
Not only will the stream take care of all your ecommerce, it will let your friends know your travel plans and dietary habits. Who needs to say “I’m going to Paris” when they can just reverse engineer your booking command?
The stream may turn out to be the command line king’s dream. Maybe.