Quite a few bloggers, Robert Scoble included, have stated that the real-time age is here, heralded in by the flood of traffic over Steve Jobs' recent announcement of a leave of absence from Apple. Excellent! If this is true, then the day where real news flows as smoothly as dirty rumours has finally arrived. Except…

Scoble pointed out a few problems with the real-time "age", as it now stands. And the first of the problems he listed really struck a chord with me. He said,

If you aren’t online there’s no “warning” system that something is happening. I wish I could tell Twitter to SMS me whenever a “high flow” event is underway.

Such a service is badly needed right now, in order to bring the benefits of this new age to everyone. But why just Twitter? A decent news-gleaning service should touch every possible real-time source of information, figure out what's hot and trending, and let us know right away, whether by SMS, Twitter, or any other communication method.

Personally, I believe the system is on the way. The social media tools we use now, like Twitter and FriendFeed and all those others, these are just the prototypes for what we'll one day use to keep on top of the events which impact our lives. By the end of 2009, if not sooner, we will see the real deal appear, and then the real-time age will have truly arrived.