The Jeff Pulver Blog: Do you prefer to receive updates about your friends on a “Pull” or a “Push” basis?

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September 05, 2007

Do you prefer to receive updates about your friends on a “Pull” or a “Push” basis?

Yesterday morning at "Friends of DLD Breakfast" hosted by Dr. Hubert Burda, Esther Dyson made the comment that she prefers to get information updates about her friends more on a “Pull” than a “Push” basis and this is why she doesn’t use twitter. Which leads me to today’s question of the day:

How do you prefer to receive information updates from your friends? Do you prefer for the information to be delivered on a “pull” or “push” basis?

Dr. Hubert Burda, Esther Dyson

Tags: Question of the Day, DLD, Esther Dyson, Jeff Pulver

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Posted by jeff on September 5, 2007 11:04 AM | Permalink

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Comments

first instinct. obviously pull.
however it is more complex than that... when would I want PUSH?
All invitations? some invitations?
occasionally? when I want to receive real time updates.
It seems like I DO want push - but in a more complex
manner. Maybe I would define my social network and subscribe to a (customizable) social rule set for information broadcasts.

Posted by: Eric Dawson at September 7, 2007 03:44 PM

Push or pull? It's a Web 2.0 Personality Type issue, and there are other similar dimensions (rich/text for example):

http://smoothspan.wordpress.com/2007/08/29/web-20-personality-types/

Posted by: Bob Warfield at September 7, 2007 12:09 PM

thank you

Posted by: sohbet at September 6, 2007 07:30 AM

In response to Markus Göbel.
To each his own. Little chirps like these can be very meaningful to distant friends and family who suddenly are that much closer due to such instant push communication.

If you do not know the person and have no interest if their drive to Boston on Thursday went well or not, then it's useless. For the family it's of endless value.

Posted by: Gudmann Bragi at September 6, 2007 07:28 AM

I much prefer push style updates about friends, acquaintances, etc. Without Push, I wouldn't have seen Jeff's twitter post. Without Push, I'd have, as a new pod/vlogcaster, very little audience (beyond myself...can't get enough of my own stuff ;-). When people subscribe, my content gets pushed out to them. Then, when I fade, they can remove that RSS subscription. When you plant your garden, some stuff that comes up and stays pretty & you keep it around. Other stuff wilts too quickly and you weed it out. :-)

I can see Esther's point: she's at the nexus of huge information networks and must be careful of the huge fire-hoses of info she's feeding off of. For me, I have a few garden hoses.

Posted by: Alex Landefeld at September 5, 2007 11:06 PM

Push for my "insiders" pull for the rest I have moderate interest in.

Posted by: THATCH at September 5, 2007 10:33 PM

My initial reaction was, "How the hell is Twitter a Push mechanism?" I haven't really used it. But, from what I understand, I have to subscribe to someone else's feed to get information from them. Right? Wouldn't that make it pull?

Push would be email where I don't necessarily have to subscribe to receive updates from someone. OR the phone would be push where telemarketers can call me anytime they want.

RSS is the only example of Pull that I know where I can unsubscribe if I want... and the person publishing the info has no choice. Using RSS... they can't push me information that I don't want

Maybe a little clarification on the definition would be helpful here?

Posted by: Peter Caputa at September 5, 2007 07:43 PM

I would prefer to get streamed a certain 'background noise' (basically what Facebooks does) and be able to pick, get closer, pull when ever I want to.

Waiting for something like the Jabber/Lluna project to become real, so I can reach 'friends' and 'situations' in such a stream by cutting through the space-time dimension.

Posted by: Hugo E. Martin at September 5, 2007 04:25 PM

Well I have to request the things that are pushed to me in the first place so initially it starts with a "pull" to make the push happen. Daily I like a "push" in my direction.

Posted by: Patrick at September 5, 2007 03:44 PM

Twitterlike things, push, no question. I use goggletalk IM in a browserwindow I keep open.

Most relative news, push through email.

Not so relative news, web based RSS (personalized goggle frontpage. Can't be bothered with yet another client.

Posted by: Gudmann Bragi at September 5, 2007 02:26 PM

What amazes me is not that one person prefers push over pull, but that some people think that everyone should want everything the same way! We are all different, have different shades of needs and preferences. That's why we have a huge variety of communication tools.

As for me, I live in a small town and work in a small biz. I enjoy the instant 'push' communication of Twitter. It's my company water cooler, with a global reach, and it's far from useless for me. I have gathered useful information and links while enjoying the general interaction. For other updates like Facebook, I prefer to pull them in at my convenience.

That's just my opinion.

Posted by: Small Town Entrepreneur Becky McCray at September 5, 2007 01:58 PM

I'm context-dependent. Push is good for short updates, Twitter-style “Bob's just made me the most amazing cake”, “I'm going to murder my children”, etc: conversation-starters and alerts.

Pull is better for the important and longer stuff, and often the actual conversations (blog/comments, like this one).

I don't pay attention to friends updates of a significant nature until the end of the day, but I like getting the updates throughout the day because it means I'm not completely out of the loop when I'm busy.

Posted by: Mo at September 5, 2007 01:47 PM

I definitely prefer pull.

Because push media are always contaminated with marketing. People tend to steal your time with information which is good for them but not for you. You always have to filter whether the information is useful or are they just trying to sell you something or steal your time.

That's why I unsubscribed from newsletters which clogged my inbox. Instead I read newsfeeds when I want, but obviously newsfeeds are also a push medium, only less annoying.

Twitter is just useless. Who need information like "Good morning! Looks like a great day. I just hope the weather stays like this for my drive/ferry/drive to Boston on Thursday." or "Jeff is sleeping and dreaming about Jerusalem ROCKS!"?

Posted by: Markus Göbel's Tech News Comments at September 5, 2007 01:34 PM

pull seems to be the more natural method-- the reason that twitter seems bizarre to most people is that the majority of twits are things that people would not tell you-- they're boring. people only 'push' a story to you if it's an interesting one, which the majority of twits are not. (same with blogging.)

in pulling, we grab the stories we want-- technologically, i would imagine that it's closer to RSS, because we are using technology to 'ask' for information.

Posted by: julien at September 5, 2007 12:44 PM