Library and academic interest in "push" technology?

[JQ Johnson]

Prentiss Riddle asks:
>Is it possible to envision a "push" channel of
>     value to faculty or students in Computer Science?  Astronomy?
>     History?  English?

If we broaden our conceptualization of push channels slightly, I think the
answer is a definite yes.  An astronomer might register an interest in
getting data (or images) from a remote telescope as soon as it's available.
A computer scientist might register an interest in getting information from
an academic news wire service about advances in communications technology --
perhaps the latest stories from an incrementally published scholarly
ejournal.  An historian might enroll in a push channel that delivered news
from her professional association.  An english major might register an
interest in seeing additions to a list of employment opportunities in his
geographic area.

One point in such examples is that the number of channels of possible push
information could become very large, with the content quite specialized and
only a few subscribers to any particular channel.  Push channels might also
be used to deliver rarely-changing information, in which case information
would be delivered over the channel only occasionally. That's not the
current model, where only a few "push" providers exist, with channels
corresponding to broad categories of traditional news.  

One interesting potential driver of push technology may be IP multicast.
Current thinking about IP multicast is that it will be used primarily for
delivering streaming video to multiple simultaneous destinations, e.g. in an
n-way videoconference.  However, it's a natural for use in implementing the
next generation of push-based information services, and would go a long way
to addressing the performance concerns surrounding such services as
PointCast.


JQ Johnson                      Office: 115F Knight Library
Academic Education Coordinator  E-mail: jqj at darkwing.uoregon.edu
1299 University of Oregon       voice: 1-541-346-1746
Eugene, OR  97403-1299          fax: 1-541-346-3485