The idea of the real time web has taking on serious momentum, and is seen as a fundamental characteristic of the web’s next evolution. Here are a few real time applications that are worth keeping an eye on.

1. YourVersion. Winner of the People’s Choice Award at this years TechCrunch50, this application should certainly be of interest to librarians.

YourVersion is a personalized, real-time discovery engine that finds new, relevant content tailored to one’s interests and makes it easy to bookmark and share that content.

2. Aardvark. Aardvark is a way to get quick answers to questions using your extended social network. You can ask questions via IM or email, and the question is then passed to your friends, and friends of friends, based on what their profiles say their interests are.

3. PostRank. Based on social engagement, PostRank allows you to find the most relevant content on the web in real time that matches your specific interests.

PostRank measures engagement by analyzing the types and frequency of an audience’s interaction with online content. An item’s PostRank score represents how interesting and relevant people have found it to be. The more interesting or relevant an item is, the more work they will do to share or respond to that item so interactions that require more effort are weighted higher. PostRank scoring is based on analysis of the “5 Cs” of engagement: creating, critiquing, chatting, collecting, and clicking. By collecting interaction engagement metrics in these categories the overall engagement score is calculated and the PostRank value is determined.

Wildcard. Google Wave. Tomorrow, Google will issue 100,000 invitations to preview the new application, or “personal communication and collaboration tool.”. People already believe that it will overtake Twitter in the real time game, but Google has failed in the past so we have to wait and see.