Push technology also called Webcasting is a data distribution technology in which selected data is automatically delivered into the user's computer at prescribed intervals or based on some event that occurs. Although no longer in service, PointCast was the first Internet product to become popular for pushing selected news and stock quotes into a user's machine at prescribed intervals. (In actuality, most of the push is triggered by user or administrator pre-selection and arrives only as the result of client requests.) In addition to changing the Web for the home user, new Webcasting products offer corporations an organized way to manage information for their intranet users. In a business setting, an enterprise's intranet/Internet manager installs one of several Webcasting products available on a central Web server. Depending on the product, a range of provided program channels may be available to provide the intranet/Internet users with international, national, and perhaps local news or news headlines and possibly other services. The intranet/Internet manager decides which channels to pre-select for intranet/Internet users and which channels available for the user to choose. The intranet manager can develop new channels to put on the server that will "push" corporate news, industry or trade news, and news about competitors to selected users in the company. It is much more scalable to large groups of users, for example, there may be ten thousand users who want to receive a same piece of information. However, there are drawbacks to using push technology i.e. information overload, and traffic congestion, the volume of the data being communicated can clog up the Internet communication links with. |
Using Push Technology in a Business Setting
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