It's been possible to instantly push information from a web server to a web browser for at least 10 years, but this technology has finally gone mainstream thanks to technologies like WebSockets and solutions like SignalR, socket.io, Faye and Pusher. In this sessions I'll cover the past, present and future of client/server communication technology, the realtime web and provide a number of use cases and demonstrations of how the technology is actually used today (it's not just chat and spaceship games).