Google Finance Android App - ’streaming’ ?
Posted on March 5, 2009 by Tim
Filed Under Technology, Uncategorized |
Since I launched (still?) the only stock market application to truly stream tick by tick data on to the iPhone and Android I feel that I’m fairly qualified to comment on the continued mis-use of the term ’streaming’ which is used widely by my competitors and most recently by Google Finance who launched their Android app this week -
Streaming, particularly in the context of market data, has always meant a continual stream of data whether it’s a digital audio stream or in this case tick by tick market data. Typically it relies on a ‘Comet‘ style interface between the handset and the market data source.
That’s not to say streaming data to a handset is necessarily the right way in which users want to consume market data, particularly those who might have stupidly expensive data plans (which thankfully doesn’t seem to be the case with UK iPhone and Android users) ; however with more brokers likely to offer instant execution against a price streaming to their handset I feel it’s the way to go. Where not in place already, stock brokers will be moving away from the 20-30 seconds validity period for an offer to be executed on your ’screen’ (think mobile) - the market can move too rapidly these days, which is where a comet style streaming connection will come in to its own.
References:
http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2009/03/finance-for-android-app.html
http://www.lightstreamer.com/pieceofnews_0030.htm
http://lightstreamer.blogspot.com/2008/12/shareprice-android-application.html
http://www.shareprice.co.uk/mobile/
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