When I first heard about Marc Benioff of Salesforce.com talking about how everything with computing will look like Twitter, I thought surely I must be misreading something someplace? Alas, I was not misreading anything and he was serious in stating that real time search results is where things are at.

Now I might be willing to agree with the idea that real time data is critical for those trying to connect with their customers. I mean, this is pretty much a given at this point. But I also think that people are placing too much blanket importance on real time data. Like it is some sort of holy grail.

I maintain the firm belief that Twitter and other options like it, are merely a double edged sword. In short, its sustainability has yet to be fully explored in my opinion. Let’s not forget, Twitter is not profitable yet. So I would limit my thoughts on real time connectivity to the likes of options such as Presently. Solutions such as that, are the only ones I see with any long term value. Twitter, Facebook and others, while useful, are also fads that will eventually fall into their norm. And that norm will be a whole lot less impressive than it is now.