VLAB Event – The Real Time Web: Imperative or Insanity?

real time webThe cost of creating, sharing and distributing data in real time has become essentially zero, leading to an explosion of user generated content. Currently, every minute,

  • 500,000 pieces of content are shared on Facebook,
  • 70,000 bit.ly links are clicked,
  • 25,000 messages are created on Twitter,
  • 1,000 blog posts go live, and
  • 20 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube.

Over the last decades, the amount of data created by individuals has doubled every 1.5 to 2 years. Technologies like pubsubhubbub and xmpp are making it easier to push that firehose of data out to users, with only a millisecond of latency from thought and distribution. But how do we effectively use that data to make decisions that drive value for consumers and businesses?  How much is too much to handle? And what’s the opportunity for the entrepreneur?

In this event, we engage with entrepreneurs, investors, and established players to separate reality from hype, and explore the following questions:

  • Is real-time technology just for pesky marketers and profit-hungry wall street traders, or is there something in there for the rest of us?
  • Where and how can real-time data help us make better decisions?
  • How can we enable users to effectively digest and manage the ever-increasing torrents of information?
  • What are the opportunities and possible new business models?
  • What psychological principles drive the addiction of ever changing, seemingly relevant real time data?
  • And what’s the real time entrepreneur to do about it?

When
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
6:00pm – 7:00pm – Networking and Refreshment
7:00pm – 8:30pm – Panel Discussion and Q/A

Where
Stanford Business School

Register here

Create Traffic with Twitter

twitterAgainst common knowledge, one of the most common ways people use Twitter is as a social information filter and link distributor. In many cases, Twitter is also replacing people’s RSS readers (which is also my experience).

The case of TechCrunch is very interesting: One of the ways TC uses Twitter is to Tweet out links to their stories, which then spread virally as followers retweet those links. TC is a big believer in retweets (in fact, there is now a retweet button at the bottom of every post)

Over the past few months, TC has experienced the power of Twitter firsthand as the percentage of traffic has grown to the point that it is now their second largest source of outside traffic after Google. In the past 30 days, Twitter accounted for 9.7 percent of all traffic to Techcrunch.com, up from 1.8 percent six months ago. This is out of millions of visits.

Summary: TechCrunch is not typical of most Websites, but this data certainly shows the potential of Twitter to generate traffic.