Comet is a new term that’s been coined to describe the modern incarnation of server push. Most Web applications that update a Web page in real time use polling to grab updates from the server. Comet refer to Web pages that maintain a live connection to the server and allow the server to push data onto the page whenever it likes. Alex Russell explains exactly how Comet works and provides some pointers to the server-side tools that provide Comet support.

Comet Daily is a new group blog on the subject.