Real-Time – the third dimension of the web, and why it feels social

The rise of real-time web services today are abundant, with them comes a flow of social aspects. For ages the web contained a two dimensional platform. Web pages address their phenomenon in a widths and heights reality. But this is coming to an end. We are slowly embedding a third dimension. Let’s talk about why it is happening now and why it feels social.

My reality exists of 4 dimensions. Height, width and depth as well as the fourth dimension called space-time. The web misses out on 2 of those dimensions namely depth and space-time.

Spatially a third, depth dimension, to the web would result in that you can see everybody else who is looking at the same page as you are. With one important remark, if they were there at the same time as you.

To use an analogy of how depth as a dimension to web would look like, let’s go back to the 60’s. Go down to the corner of your block and buy the morning newspaper. Right away you would start reading and after a while you would look around you to see if there was anyone else to talk about that article with. Often there weren’t someone around reading the same stuff as you, and it felt lonely. This is happening if you read an article or blog post on the web today, you can not see if anyone else is reading the same as you right now. You miss out on the 3rd dimension.

At the newsstand sometimes there was someone next to you reading the same article as you did. You would start talking, asking ”sad to see this to Kennedy” or ”damn they actually made it to the moon”, right away he would respond. The result spatially would be that we are here together, not based on a depth dimension but based on a time dimension.

Technically real-time web solutions have been around and been used for ages, IRC ruled and still rules among developers, msn is used by millions of teenagers and been so for a decade. This concludes that real-time is not only a technical evolution. The evolution has happened somewhere else.

Time as a dimension to the web worked dysfunctional, just as with the newsstand, if ”everybody” else is not there, meaning not constantly connected. This is rapidly changing with the growth of 3G networks and mobile Internet devices. People are not only in the same space but also gets the notion of being there at the same time. Real-time is the 3rd dimension of the web. A spatial two-dimensional world in width and height with a 3rd dimension of time, adding the feeling of being there at the same time as others.

This targets my second point that coining terms such as social media is only an effect of a real-time dimension. Real-time due to its components of putting people not only in the same space but placing them there at the same time produces a social feeling. Therefore parallel with the rise of real-time services, the social aspect of the web grows rapidly.

The real-time web is here to stay and so its social feeling. Width + Heights + Real-time = the three dimensional web. Let’s await depth and the rise of the fourth dimension. Do not be surprised if it comes as an augmented reality.