Some forums do already do this.
Slashdot does a lot of on the fly updating, but they've also completely ballsed up their website doing it, so maybe that's not the best example.
I certainly wouldn't mind live updating. Would just be a more convenient way refreshing the page. Would be especially useful in thread that receive lots of replies in a short period of time (e.g. Japan tsunami ).
As long as it does not in any way disrupt your reading progress. If the page so much as twitches while I am reading a post will be annoying as hell. Imagine that happening dozens of times with a big, popular thread.
Yeah, it would need to silently add additional content to the bottom of the page, without moving any other content. Not sure how it would manage post edits though.
Be more like twitter / RSS feeds like BBB text commentary - in a sense that the information is done and processed live and not having to Refresh pages, if you see what I mean?
Do they call it Web 2.0 or something?
Or will forums always be like this old school ?![]()
Wave has been canned, and the team working on it moved elsewhere (including to facebook)Have you used Google Wave?
It is pretty much what you describe.
Forum like topics for conversations, but with live updating like instant messenger. Still in pretty early beta as far as I'm aware, it was a bit slow when it first launched but has potential. More aimed for collaborative working but would fit this description too.