Don’t miss out on a low-cost and highly effective way to initiate, communicate, and instantaneously engage the users of your product. Knowing what push technology is and how to use it will help you reach more users effectively and provide value by solving their problems.

Push technology or webcasting delivers information to an individual or group of users

webcastingandvirtualevents.com gathered the following information, definition, use, and comparison of push technology.

What is The Definition of Push Technology?

Push technology is a form of communication taking place over the internet when data is pushed from a server to a user without the user requesting it. Most push technologies must have the user’s authorization or subscription for delivery. Once a user has subscribed, relevant content is delivered when available without waiting for a request from the user/consumer.

Push Technology is also known as “webcasting,” where a web server delivers information to an individual or group of users (who have signed up for the service) instead of waiting for the user(s) to request the information be sent to them.

What is Pull and Push Technology?

Push technology is differentiated from pull technology based on whether it is the receiver (user/consumer) or the sender (server) that initiates the transaction. If the server initiates the transfer and sends information to the user without receiving a request, the process is implementing push technology. If the client (browser, web application, or smartphone application) requests information from the server before the server sends it, the process is implementing pull technology.

Push technologies are widely-used to deliver relevant content to various types of applications, devices, and end users. Websites utilize push technology to continually update software programming and present content in real-time, like a news app or website’s breaking news or headline ticker, or scoreboard.

Web applications will often use push technology to notify users of new content, like a tab that appears on a social media site indicating that new posts or messages are available. Computer, tablet, IOS, and smartphone applications often use push technology to deliver notifications letting the user know as soon as upgrades or new content is available.

However, the most prevalent use of push technology today is for app notifications on smartphones. When you install a new app, like the Facebook or Instagram app, you can choose whether or not to receive “in-app” notifications. If you do opt to receive such notifications, you have subscribed to push technology.

Note: Not everything that initially resembles push technology actually is. For example, while some news and sports applications and sites use push technology, others may automatically refresh the page at regular intervals in order for readers to receive frequently updated headline or score information from the server. Also, RSS feeds are checked at regular intervals by RSS readers, which pull in new content and aren’t necessarily pushed from the feed to the reader.

Is Internet Push or Pull?

This is a common misunderstanding. The internet is not a “push” medium like television or radio. It is a “pull” medium. When a user wants to see, read, or watch something on the internet, they request that information from a server. The user then pulls the content to their browser, device, or app.

Why is Push Technology Important?

Push technology delivers notifications to an individual or group of users

Push technology provides brands the benefit of engaging directly with customers by delivering relevant information and content corresponding to their preferences, search history, and previous purchases. Such information might include headline news, sports scores (game results), special deals, announcing a new product launch, stock movements, coupons, incentives for specific retail purchases, special online or in-person events, and more.

When push technology is combined with data collection, it allows organizations to present the most relevant products, info, and sales funnels to a user or group of users that will be more likely to appeal and convert.

Note: With push technology, marketers can send messages directly to individuals who have installed their apps. Such messages can be sent when the app is open or closed. The notification will typically appear as a pop-up message, badge, or an alert informing end users they have a message.

Push Technology

In this article, you discovered essential information and definition of what push technology is and how keen marketers can utilize it to get relevant information, promotions, and product in front of their audience.

Using push technology to present concepts and products to an already primed audience can heighten user activity and significantly increase a company’s revenue.

Ignoring the benefits of employing push technology can limit your reach and ability to inform the users of your product in real-time.

Sources:
citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.68.6556&rep=rep1&type=pdf
cseweb.ucsd.edu/classes/sp97/cse190/push/introduction.html
web.mit.edu/ecom/www/Project98/G9/pushpull.htm
moglen.law.columbia.edu/CPC/archive/eyeball/19POIN.html