Last week, Marimba Inc., a white-hot Silicon Valley start-up, launched a new technology that promises to end the long waits and frustration that often make surfing the Net about as exciting as watching the tide change. The company is riding a trend to ““push’’ information at Internet users, instead of forcing them to go out and download it themselves. The best-known of these so-called push services today is the PointCast Network, which works like a screen saver–only instead of flying toasters, you get up-to-the-minute news. Marimba’s technology, a software product called Castanet (get it?), will let any company create a ““channel’’ of information–giving the wired masses the information they want, when they want it.
Net users are definitely pulling for the push concept. More than 1.5 million people have already signed onto PointCast’s free service since its debut in February. After you’ve downloaded a small piece of software–similar to a Web browser–onto your hard drive, PointCast in effect knows where you live. The software contacts the PointCast server in Cupertino, Calif., which in turn sends a more or less continuous stream of data containing headlines, weather, sports scores, stock quotes–and, of course, ads–to your PC. Once this kind of two-way contact is established, it’s not unlike traditional broadcasting–tweaked to exploit the interactivity of the Internet. You tailor-fit the frequency of updates and type of news to suit your needs. For people who ““subscribe’’ to the service from work, where corporate T1 lines often provide a 24-hour open spigot of Net access, tuning into the PointCast Network can be just like turning on your radio and letting it play in the background all day.
It’s a great idea, and several companies–relative unknowns like Intermind, BackWeb, FreeLoader and Cognisoft among them–are prepared to run with it. But Marimba, formed eight months ago by four renegades from Sun Microsystems’ original Java development team, may have the best answer. The Castanet technology will allow any company to offer a PointCast-like service, without being tied to PointCast itself. With Castanet, Marimba sells companies a ““transmitter’’ for sending out information. Users install a Castanet ““tuner,’’ then select from different ““channels.’’ MGM Interactive, one of the early testers of Castanet, plans to offer seven entertainment programs including multimedia soap operas on its channel.
One of the most intriguing aspects of Castanet is that it can deliver actual applications–and update old software on the fly through the Internet. This is a much more difficult task than just sending bits of text, sound and video to your PC. What thhis means is that a company like Smith Barney could, for example, send you a software program through the Internet that allows you to take advantage of its sophisticated number-crunching tools to manage your personal stock portfolio. Three months from now, the company could update the program with the lastest algorithms–installing itself automatically on your hard drive. New features, like an investment-trend tracker, would seem to magically appear the next time you booted up.
The best indication that Marimba’s on to something is that Microsoft is already knocking on its door. ““What we’ve talked to them about is exactly what’s on our Web site, no more, no less,’’ says Marimba president Kim Polese. But, she adds, ““it’s conceivable that the tuner could be bundled with Internet Explorer … or Netscape Navigator.’’ In plain English, that means your sports section may soon be ““pushed’’ to a desktop near you.
