One of the big trends in web content and searching is the real-time web. The real-time web is what's being posted right now - material too new to be  included in results from most general-purpose search tools. So what's all the fuss? This month, ResearchNOTES takes you on a tour of the real-time web:

If you want to know everything there is to know about the real-time web, read The Real-Time Web: A Primer, a three-part article courtesy of ReadWriteWeb blog, at http://digbig.com/5bahms.

There's lots of great information being created in real time through Twitter. This blog posting over at Web Worker Daily has several tips for getting past the junk and mining what's really useful: http://digbig.com/5bahmt.

But it's not all about Twitter or other social-media sites. Biznar (http://biznar.com/biznar/), one of my favorite business search engines, submits your search query in real time, so you're not searching a stale 'index,' as is the case with Google. Recently I've also been checking out another real-time search engine, itpints, at http://www.itpints.com/.

When only up-to-the-minute information will do, you can turn to the real-time web. For example, get real-time population statistics at http://www.worldometers.info/, and the most current flight information can be found at http://www.flightstats.com/go/Home/home.do.

What real-time resources have you found?

Regards - Marcy

Marcy Phelps
Phelps Research
Author, Research on Main Street: Using the Web to Find Local Business and Market Information (Forthcoming)
+1 303.239.0657                        Email: mphelps@phelpsresearch.com
Web: www.phelpsresearch.com     Blog:  www.MarcyPhelps.com