push technology

Automatic transmission of information to Internet users, without their having to find it and ‘pull’ it to themselves. Push technology was introduced in 1996 by PointCast (now EntryPoint) and Marimba, and in 1997 Microsoft and Netscape built push ‘channels’ into their Web browsers. The technology did not prove popular with consumers, however, as the principle was too similar to ‘junk e-mail’ (see spamming).

Marimba now aims its technology at large companies and application service providers, for corporate distribution and management of software. RSS (Really Simple Syndication) enables content such as news feeds or podcasts to be pushed to Internet end users.