I've been quite fond of a library known as SignalR. The library wraps several different communication protocols: Websockets, server-sent-events, and long-polling. You don't really need to know exactly what those are. Just know that they are each a form of continuous communication with the client browser directly from the server.

I have to share a library with you. It's just so awesome that it can't stay contained. It's called SignalR [https://github.com/SignalR/SignalR]. For a couple years I've been searching for a simple workable .NET solution to an AJAX chat application. On the surface an AJAX chat is