Push Technology

Push technology reverses the Internet's content delivery model. Before push, content publishers had to reply upon the end-users own initiative to bring them to a web site or download content. With push technology the publisher can deliver a content directly to the users PC, thus substantially improving the likelihood that the user will view it. Push content can be extremely timely, and delivered fresh several times a day. Information keeps coming to user whatever he asked for it or not. The most common analog for push technology is a TV channel; it keeps sending us stuff whether we care about it or not.

Push was created to alleviate two problems facing users of net. The first problem is information overload. The volume and dynamic nature of content on the internet is a impediment to users, and has become an ease-of -use of issue. Without push applications can be tedious, time consuming, and less than dependable. Users have to manually hunt down information, search out links, and monitor sites and information sources. Push applications and technology building blocks narrow that focus even further and add considerable ease of use. The second problem is that most end-users are restricted to low bandwidth internet connections, such as 33.3 kbps modems, thus making it difficult to receive multimedia content. Push technology provides means to pre-deliver much larger packages of content.

Push technology enables the delivery of multimedia content on the internet through the use of local storage and transparent content downloads. Like a faithful delivery agent, push, often referred to as broadcasting, delivers content directly to user transparently and automatically. It is one of the internet's most promising technologies.

Already a success, push is being used to pump data in the form of news, current affairs and sports etc, to many computers connected to the internet.Updating software is one of the fastest growing uses of push. It is a new and exciting way to manage software update and upgrade hassles. Using the internet today without the aid of a push application can be a tedious, time consuming, and less than dependable. Computer programming is an inexact art, and there is a huge need to quickly and easily get bug fixes, software updates, and even whole new program out to people. Users have to manually hunt down information, search out links, and monitor sites and information sources.

2. THE PUSH PROCESS

For the end user, the process of receiving push content is quite simple. First, an individual subscribes to a publisher's site or channel by providing the content preferences. The subscriber also sets up a schedule specifying when information should be delivered. Based on the subscriber's schedule, the PC connects to the internet, and the client software notifies the publisher's server that the download can occur. The server collates the content pertaining to the subscriber's profile and downloads it to the subscriber's machine, after which the content is available for the subscriber's viewing

WORKING

Interestingly enough, from a technical point of view, most push applications are pull and just appear to be 'push' to the user. In fact, a more accurate description of this process would be 'automated pull'.

The web currently requires the user to poll sites for new or updated information. This manual polling and downloading process is referred to as 'pull' technology. From a business point of view, this process provides little information about user, and even little control over what information is acquired. It is the user has to keep track of the location of the information sites, and the user has to continuously search for informational changes - a very time consuming process. The 'push' model alleviates much of this tedium.