How does incoming mail notification on Gmail works?

Question

I\'m wondering how it\'s implemented in Gmail, that every time you receive e-mail, the list of mails is automatically refreshed. It looks like the server is sending some kin

Answer 1

Dont know exactly which technoloy Gmail uses, but the concept is to open a channel - using reverse AJAX, comet or sprocket based techniques.

Think of it as the client requesting the server for data, but the server does not return for one minute unless it has new mail. Using this technique, the client can almost show the results in a real time manner and it does not have to poll every 2 secs. Makes sense?