Define realtime on the web for business

Question

It drives me nuts to hear business proponents using the term realtime for web-based systems. I\'m becoming the crazy in the room, chanting, \"There is no such thing as real

Answer 1

One definition of a real time system ( from the safety critical systems world ) is a system whose correctness depends on the timeliness of its responses.

That would apply equally well for a real-time web trading system - the stock values go stale in seconds as for an embedded avionics fly-by-wire system with millisecond correctness requirements.

Answer 2

Immediate? Instant? Live (no, wait, Microsoft owns that word these days, don't they?)?

More seriously, "realtime" is probably not confusing for anyone who doesn't have a process-control / embedded-system background. Have a comforting beverage and worry about other things.