RSSCloud, Pubsubhubbub, Omgwtf?

Yeah, that was my reaction too when I tried to pronounce that second one there, however this article describes the two and why one may be better than the other. First of all, lets figure out what these things are. Both of these are two fairly new protocols in real-time web applications. RSSCloud and Pubsubhubbub (or PuSH for short) bring new updates to the user, rather than the user having to go out and fetch new data. Both protocols eliminate the need for user polling and simply deliver all new updates to subscriptions on its own. Both of these protocols are extremely similar, but the subtle differences between the two are what make many say that PuSH is better. There are three things that make PuSH better than RSSCloud. In RSSCloud, you are only notified of updates, but with PuSH, the updates are sent directly to you. PuSH is also more friendly when it comes to variable callbacks which deals with different servers and where information is coming from. Third is the way that PuSH deals with unsubscribing. RSSCloud unsubscribes after 25 hours, whereas PuSH does not unsubscribe unless you set a specific time for it to. Both of these protocols are viewed as a huge step for the web.

This is interesting to me simply because I had no idea what either of these things were prior to me finding the article. I still have a very limited amount of knowledge on the subject, but now that I have a basic understanding I find the technology interesting enough to maybe pursue it further in the future. This relates to class because we have been talking about Web 2.0, and this is a part of that, and maybe even a step towards Web 3.0 in the future with things like cloud computing.

~ by bellorz on September 10, 2009.