By Jennifer Kyrnin

In order to get information from one source to the consumer, it must be transmitted. In general terms, there can be only two ways to transmit that information - "pull" or "push".

Pull Publishing
Most information retrieval on the Web is through "pull" publishing. The information is put on a Web page, and the consumer goes to that Web page and "pulls" the information to them. Newspapers, books, and magazines function in the same way. The consumer must make a conscious effort to go get the newspaper or Web page and then choose what to read on that page. If you don't pick up Tuesday's newspaper, you will not get the news for that day.

My Web site is an example of pull technology. I publish an article one or two times a week, but if you don't come to the Web page, you will not receive the information. The information is all archived (like libraries do with newspapers), but for the news of the day, you need to come to the site every day.

Push Publishing
Turning on the radio or a television are examples of "push" publishing. The TV and radio stations are continuously broadcasting the latest information. All the consumer need do is flip a switch and the information is there.

As I said above, the Web is basically a pull publishing system. But the push model of Web publishing would offer many advantages to both the consumer and publisher. The most common use of push technology on the Web is for stock price announcements and sports scores, but it can be used for all types of things to keep Web consumers informed.

In Steps XML
In order to create a push environment for the Web, a standardized data representation needed to be created. This language would define the channel, channel title, and update schedule, and so on. Then the consumers could use a browser that is familiar with this language to get channel information pushed to them.

Thus the Channel Definition Format or CDF was created. CDF is an XML application that allows Web publishers to push content from their servers to their consumers as often or seldom as necessary. As a consumer, you can subscribe to channels that have information of interest to you and the data will be pushed from the Web server to your browser. As a publisher, you can make sure that your readers have the most current information available on your product or service.

Why Use Push Technology
Push technology allows you to get current information to your customers in a timely fashion. But this doesn't have to just be monetary information, you can push:

• sale information
• little league statistics
• photos documenting your life
• stock tickers
• online fiction chapter by chapter
• updates to your Web site
• anything you can imagine...

You will find that it really isn't difficult to write your own channel. Microsoft provides a tool for it, or you can do it by hand.

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