Nozzl Media, Inc.

ASAP is never fast enough.

The First Transcontinental Telegraph introduced real-time communications to the entire North American continent 148 years ago this week.

Two days later, the Pony Express, which had redefined ASAP as 10 days, closed.

Now that’s disruptive technology.

Now, we are entering the next phase of the Internet: global real-time communications.

But this time, it’s much different. Instead of communication between two people or two geographic points, Internet users across the globe will all be able to communicate simultaneously with everyone else. Like a massive planetary ant hive, the users of Facebook, Twitter and other social-networking services already know not only life events, but also the thoughts and emotions of hundreds or thousands of people worldwide.

And they know these things as fast as someone can type and click a send button.

ASAP.

But that’s still not fast enough for many.

Nozzl Media and other players in the real-time world are using technology to push information almost instantly to users in ways that don’t require human input. The fast-growing field has begun to draw established companies such as Google and Yahoo, as well as entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. One of the nation’s leading technology publications, ReadWriteWeb, drew dozens of real-time players and wannabes last week to Mountain View, Calif., for its Real-Time web Summit.

Nozzl and nine other companies were selected to demo our products as Editor’s Choice entries.

Lead developer Brian Hendrickson and I fielded a lot of questions from people who were mesmerized by the moving stream of items that poured forth in real time on our smartphones and on a newspaper website demo. They wanted to know where the content originated (public records, newspapers and social media, among other sources) and how we made a mobile web app look like a native iPhone app (it’s a secret). They also liked our filter, which enables each user to customize the content.

These particular real-time fanboys and fangirls love the here and now. The general public may be a little more wary about where real-time communication is leading us. Will we become more impatient? Will our sense of time change? Will fast food be fast enough?

I know only two things for sure:

First, the changes will be more profound and unpredictable than those created by the advent of the telegraph – or other real-time technology such as the telephone, radio and TV.

Second, real time still won’t be fast enough for some.

Which leads to a potentially intriguing conclusion: The Next Big Real-Time Technology may be fortune-telling.