Enabled PubSubHubbub on my Blog

I am excited about the PubSubHubbub project, and was amazed by its simplicity and scalable design.

I finally downloaded the MovableType PubSubHubbub plugin and installed it 5 minutes ago. If it works as it is expected to work, and after Google Buzz and other crawler update my RSS XML the next time, the magic will happen. You will start to see my blog post in real time (well, almost real time by few seconds delay) in your Google Buzz. With more and more services supporting PubSubHubbub, more and more people will see this real time functionality.

What is it

Simply put, PubSubHubbub, despite of the weird name, is a very easy and simple protocol.

Every time I hit the “Save” button in my MovableType editing page, it will ping a server called http://pubsubhubbub.appsport.com (it can be any other similar services, I just used it as an example), and that server will ping all the subscribers, like Google Buzz, to tell them something has happened. Then they will get back to my blog to get the latest entry. That replace the current pull method – readers needs to check at an interval – waste of time, and can be huge delay.

Real Time Web

The web is continuously changing. I am excited to enter the real time web today.

3 thoughts on “Enabled PubSubHubbub on my Blog

  1. Jianshuo –

    How is that different from using an RSS reader? Forgive the basic question, I’m not an IT professional. I follow your blog with Google Reader now, and so far I don’t see the point of having it also appear in Buzz.

    Thanks.

  2. There is no point to put it into Google Buzz, but the key thing is Real Time.

    Now with Google Reader, when I publish my content on my blog, it may takes 10 – 30 minutes for it to appear in Google Reader. Sometimes, faster, other times, slower. It is fast enough, I know.

    However, with PubSubHubbub, 1 second after I hit the Save button, it should appear in Google Reader. Now, Google Reader does not support PubSubHubbub yet, but it will soon support (I hope). There are not many reader supporting PubSubHubbub. Google Buzz is one of them, another is Friendfeed.com…

    So my change is not just for Google Buzz, it is for all readers supporting PubSubHubbub.

  3. Hmm, I see, thanks for the response. As you said, I think for me 10-30 minutes is enough. In fact, the only thing I can think of that I would want faster than 10-30 minute updating (including stock quotes) is email. But then I’m not an IT professional…

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