Library and academic interest in "push" technology?

[Chris Hammond-Thrasher]

I have a slightly perifferal response to this thought provoking topic.
While working on a contract recently I encountered a serious technical
pitfall to these recently popular push technologies. A government
department I was working with had just outfitted all of its staff with new
desktop computers, all of which came with the PointCast installer on their
hard drives. It was not very long until a significant portion of the staff
had PointCast updating news reports several times an hour, and the
performance of both their LAN and their Internet/intranet declined
noticeably. Apparently, a memo was issued a few days ago banning the use of
PointCast by all except those who can demonstrate a work related need for
it.

- Chris Hammond-Thrasher

_________________________________________
Christopher John Hammond-Thrasher
School of Library and Information Studies
University of Alberta
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
email: cthrashe at freenet.edmonton.ab.ca
URL: http://www.ualberta.ca/~cthrashe
phone/fax: 403.433.3677