With the rise of real time we are moving from lagging indicators (customer surveys, focus groups, long product cycles) to leading indicators (online analytics, real-time optimization, lean start-up methods for business). The lag time between question-and-answer and between customer response and company reaction is the arbitrage opportunity for many businesses today.

If the ’90s metaphor for the Internet was “the brain”–a giant, storage and processing system for all the world’s information–the new metaphor is the Social Nervous System, where all of this information is bound up with ubiquitous, real-time communications and used to direct activity in the world. In the Social Nervous System, the boundaries between online and offline become extremely blurry.

We are just scraping the surface of a real-time revolution–but make no mistake, it is a big deal. That is breaking news.