General

Q: What is Now4real?

Now4real transforms static web pages into live virtual spaces where visitors can see how many others are viewing the same page in real time and interact with them via chat. Traditionally, web visitors had no way of knowing if they were alone on a page or part of a larger audience. Now4real provides presence indicators and instant group chats (pagechats), creating real-time communities around web content.

In the physical world, when you enter a coffee shop, a museum, or a park, you can see other people around you, engage in conversations, and share experiences. However, the web has traditionally been a solitary experience. Now4real bridges this gap by turning web pages into virtual gathering places, making online browsing more like moving through real-world spaces where you can interact with those around you.

For more on our philosophy and vision, read The Instant Community Manifesto.

Q: Do I need to install anything on my server?

No. Now4real is a fully managed SaaS (software as a service). Simply add the Now4real script to your web pages (either directly or via our WordPress plugin), and it will connect to the Now4real cloud, which handles all the complexity. Now4real can also be seen as a CPaaS (communications platform as a service), offering APIs to integrate managed chats into any website.

Q: What does Now4real offer?

Now4real provides two key features:

• Real-time analytics visible to users, such as the number of people currently viewing a page and rankings of the most-viewed pages.
• A dedicated chat room (pagechat) for every page, allowing visitors to engage in real-time discussions.

Q: What is a pagechat?

A pagechat is a real-time group chat associated with a specific web page. It enables site visitors to discuss page content with others viewing it at the same time. Users can also opt for a global pagechat shared across all pages or define custom chat groupings.

Q: How long do chat messages remain visible?

Pagechats are ephemeral; messages disappear after 3 hours (configurable). This helps keep discussions relevant, reduces spam, and focuses visitors on the latest conversation. Site owners can access chat transcripts for up to 12 months.

Q: What is an instant community?

An instant community forms when multiple users visit the same web page simultaneously. Similar to people sitting at the same café or viewing the same artwork in a museum, they share a common interest in the page’s content. These communities are fluid, forming and dissolving as people browse.

Q: What is presence?

Presence refers to visitors actively viewing a web page. A visitor is counted as present only when the page is in the foreground of their browser. If the tab is minimized or switched to another, their presence is removed. Now4real provides real-time counters for both page presence (specific pages) and site presence (across the entire website).

Q: What is viewing time?

Viewing time represents the total duration users actively view pages on your site within a month. It only counts time when a page is visible, not when it’s in a background tab or minimized.

Q: Why should I add Now4real to my site?

Now4real makes websites interactive and engaging in seconds, benefiting both site owners and visitors. Key advantages include increased engagement, longer session durations, and dynamic real-time interactions. Check out the benefits for both site owners and visitors:

• Benefits for site owners
• Benefits for visitors

Q: Is Now4real a customer support chat solution?

No. Unlike live chat tools for customer support (e.g., Intercom, LiveChat), Now4real enables visitors to chat with each other. Both services can coexist, allowing peer-to-peer discussions alongside customer support interactions.

Q: How does Now4real compare to Google Analytics Real-Time and Chartbeat?

• Google Analytics Real-Time and Chartbeat operate in near real time, whereas Now4real provides true real time. This means that Now4real updates the presence counter with less than a one-second latency, Chartbeat approximately every 15 seconds, and Google Analytics every 300 seconds.
• Now4real also ensures accurate presence detection by considering whether the page is actually visible. In contrast, Chartbeat counts users as active if they have clicked or scrolled within the last 15 seconds. While Google Analytics considers a user active for 5 minutes after page load, even if they leave immediately.
• Another key difference is the intended audience. Google Analytics Real-Time and Chartbeat are designed for internal use, providing insights to a limited group via dashboards. Now4real, on the other hand, is built for public visibility, delivering real-time and highly accurate presence counter updates to all users on a site at any given time.

Q: How is Now4real different from commenting systems (e.g., Disqus, Facebook Comments)?

Now4real focuses on real-time conversations between visitors currently on the same page, while traditional commenting systems enable asynchronous discussions that persist indefinitely. Both can be used together for different purposes.

Q: Why the name Now4real?

Just out of curiosity—why did we choose the name Now4real?

Everything we display is happening now—not a minute ago or even ten seconds ago. We show how many users are online now, what they are writing now, the most popular pages now, and a real-time world heatmap. Since it’s truly happening in the moment (no faking), we added 4real to emphasize authenticity.

Additionally, real evokes real-time, reinforcing one of our core value propositions: transforming the web into a real place where people can meet, interact, and experience the moment together.

Q: Other resources about the ideas behind Now4real?

In addition to The Instant Community Manifesto, you might find this interview with Now4real’s CEO insightful.

Integration

Q: How can I add Now4real to my website?

Simply add the Now4real JavaScript snippet to your site, as detailed in the Quickstart Guide, either manually or with our WordPress plugin. You don’t need an account, but registering allows for additional customization and control.

Please remember to include the links to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Service in your own Privacy Policy.

Q: Can I customize the Now4real widget?

Sure. You have plenty of control over colors, positions, messages, logos, etc. See the Quickstart Guide for details.

Q: What languages does the Now4real widget support? How to add my language?

See the list of supported languages here. Contributions to the open-source language pack on GitHub are welcome.

Q: My site doesn’t get much traffic. Can I configure the chat per site instead of per page?

Yes! By default, you get a site-wide chat that is shared across all the pages of your site. However, if you have higher traffic, you may prefer to have a separate chat for each page or for page groups. To do so, you simply need to configure the Scope option under Settings > Widget > Chat in your Now4real Dashboard.

Q: Can I test Now4real on my site without showing the widget to all visitors?

Yes! This is called stealth mode. In this mode, the widget remains hidden from visitors while still collecting real-time presence analytics for everyone.

To make the widget visible only on your own browser or your collaborators’ browsers, simply open any page of your site once with a special query string. The browser will remember this setting for future visits.

For details on enabling or disabling stealth mode, check the documentation (see the second example).

Q: Does Now4real provide an API for building my own front end?

Absolutely! The Now4real API allows you to fully integrate real-time chat and presence features into your front end. It’s a modern, well-documented JavaScript API designed with developers in mind. In fact, the Now4real widget itself is built entirely on top of this public API.

With the Now4real API, you can:

• Build fully custom chat interfaces, from minimal to feature-rich designs.
• Display real-time presence counters inside your pages instead of in a widget.
• Integrate a full-fledged chat SaaS experience into any part of your site or app.

To get started, follow the Client API tutorial.

Q: Can I show real-time presence counters next to links on my homepage?

Yes! For example, if your homepage lists articles, wouldn’t it be great to show how many people are reading each one in real time? With the Now4real API, you can do exactly that.

This works for news sites, blogs, and any other website or web app that wants to highlight live user activity.

To implement this, follow the Client API tutorial. When subscribing to the COUNTER_PAGE_VIEWERS subject, append : followed by the Page Context to the subject.

Q: What is the Now4real Dashboard?

The Now4real Dashboard (also called the Publisher Dashboard) gives you full control over how Now4real works on your site. It also provides powerful insights, including:

• Innovative analytics, such as viewing time and concurrent viewers.
• Chat transcripts, so you can review what users are saying in pagechats.

Getting started is easy:

1. Sign up for free at dashboard.now4real.com.
2. Add and verify your sites to confirm ownership or control.
3. Use the Dashboard to configure settings, track analytics, and upgrade to the Premium or Business plan if needed.

Q: Do you offer a white-label option?

Yes! The Business plan includes full white-labeling support. This goes beyond simple visual customization—it ensures deep integration into your brand’s legal and privacy framework for a seamless experience. Learn more about the white-label option.

Technology

Q: How does Now4real work under the hood?

Now4real may seem simple on the surface, but its technology is highly sophisticated. It’s a true real-time system that seamlessly connects millions of users.

When a page loads, the embedded script establishes a persistent bi-directional connection to the Now4real cloud using WebSockets. If WebSockets are blocked (e.g., by corporate firewalls or proxies), it automatically falls back to HTTP streaming or long polling, ensuring connectivity even in the strictest network environments.

Here’s what happens behind the scenes:

• The client script sends presence signals in real time to the Now4real cloud.
• It subscribes to updates for presence counters, analytics (rankings, maps, etc.), and chat messages.
• The Now4real cloud aggregates presence data, updates analytics in real time, and pushes updates asynchronously to subscribed clients.

This process is highly efficient, as Now4real minimizes the amount of data sent to each client. Adaptive throttling dynamically adjusts update frequency to prevent congestion, ensuring smooth, real-time delivery with no lag.

The same bi-directional channel is used for chat, delivering messages, typing indicators, and user profiles in real time.

Q: What makes Now4real truly real-time?

Now4real operates entirely in streaming mode:

• Presence signals and chat messages are streamed from browsers to the Now4real cloud.
• Analytics updates and chat messages are streamed back to browsers.
• Event processing happens in real time with ultra-low latency, ensuring sub-second updates.

This guarantees an instantaneous experience, whether for live presence tracking, analytics, or chat.

Q: How accurate is presence detection?

Now4real determines active presence by detecting when a web page is open and visible in the foreground of a non-minimized browser window.

On mobile devices, presence is removed when:

• A user switches tabs or apps.
• The screen turns off.

On desktops, presence is removed when:

• A tab is moved to the background.
• The browser window is minimized.
• (In some cases) The window is fully covered by another.

This level of detection provides a highly accurate, real-time estimate of how many users are actually viewing a page at any moment.

Q: Can Now4real handle millions of concurrent users?

Yes! Now4real is built on Lightstreamer, a premier real-time data streaming engine originally designed for financial trading and later adopted in aerospace and streaming TV applications.

Lightstreamer is optimized for massive scalability, offering:

• Ultra-low latency
• High-performance data push
• Military-grade resilience

On top of Lightstreamer, Now4real implements a distributed architecture that scales elastically, ensuring seamless performance even for the world’s most heavily trafficked websites.

Privacy and security

Q: How does Now4real ensure privacy?

Now4real is fully GDPR compliant and follows a clear privacy policy that outlines what data is collected and why. We only store the minimum necessary data to provide the service—nothing more.

Q: Do you track users’ navigation across websites that use Now4real?

No. We do not store any information about the websites or pages users visit. The only exception is when a user posts a chat message—in that case, the message is linked to the page where it was posted.

Q: How does chat sign-in (authentication) work?

By default, Now4real supports social and email login, allowing users to sign in with Google, Facebook, X, LinkedIn, or email.

For full control over authentication, you can enable Custom Auth, which allows your backend to authenticate users via JWT tokens—bypassing social login.

You can also enable nickname-based chat, allowing users to participate without prior registration.

Q: Does Now4real support SSO (single sign-on)?

Yes! To enable SSO, activate the Custom Auth option and pass a JWT token in your page. This lets Now4real recognize the authenticated user seamlessly. Learn more about Custom Auth.

Q: Can users chat anonymously?

By default, users can view chats without signing in, but they must authenticate to post messages. However, site owners can adjust this setting in the Dashboard, allowing anonymous posting if desired.

Q: If a user signs in, does Now4real publicly show they are on a given page?

No. User presence is only used to update anonymous counters and is not linked to specific individuals.

However, if a user posts a message in a pagechat, their name and profile picture (from their social login) will be visible in the chat.

Q: Does Now4real geolocate users?

Yes, but only at the country level—and never linked to individual users. Geolocation is used exclusively for generating the real-time heatmap, which shows how current visitors are distributed worldwide.

Q: Do I need to update my site’s privacy policy?

Yes. We recommend adding links to Now4real’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service in your own privacy policy. This ensures transparency about how Now4real works and what data it processes.

Moderation and safety

Q: How does Now4real protect against spammers, trolls, and abuse?

Now4real offers multiple moderation layers to keep pagechats safe, clean, and on-topic:

1. AI Moderation

• AI-powered real-time message analysis before publication.
• Customizable moderation policies to align with your community guidelines.
• Automatic detection of harmful content.

Learn more about AI Moderation.

2. Word filters

• Profanity filter – Built-in support for multiple languages.
• Custom filter – Site admins can block specific words or phrases.

3. Manual moderation

• Admins and moderators can delete messages before they expire.
• Users can be muted (temporarily or permanently).
• Moderation actions can be based on real-time chat monitoring or past chat transcripts.

4. Ephemeral messages

• Messages can be set to disappear after a predefined time, limiting the impact of offensive content compared to permanent comments.

5. No anonymous posting (optional)

• By default, users must authenticate to post messages.
• Site owners can enable anonymous posting at their discretion.

6. Message limits & throttling

• Max message length can be set to prevent spam.
• Users must wait at least 2 seconds before sending consecutive messages in the same chat.

Q: How does moderation work?

Now4real provides three moderation mechanisms, which can be used separately or together:

1. AI Moderation – Automatically scans messages before publication, enforcing your custom policy.
2. Word Filters – Built-in profanity filtering and custom word blocking.
3. Manual Moderation – Admins and moderators can delete messages, mute users, and review chat history.

Use cases

Q: How can Now4real benefit news sites?

Now4real transforms news sites, online newspapers, and magazines into live, interactive environments.

• Real-time reader counters – See exactly how many people are reading each article at any moment, not just how many have the page open. Now4real detects when a page is visible in the foreground on both mobile and desktop.
• Live rankings – Identify the most-read articles in real time, updated every second.
• Instant discussion rooms – Every article automatically gets a dedicated chat room, where readers can discuss the topic as it unfolds.
• Higher engagement, better monetization – Returning visitors find new discussions, increasing time spent on the page. This allows publishers to rotate more banner ads per user session and optimize programmatic advertising.
• Flexible integration – Use Now4real’s API to enable only the features you need—presence counters, chat, or both.

Q: How can Now4real enhance e-commerce sites?

Online shoppers often seek real-time feedback and recommendations before making a purchase. Traditionally, they had only two options:

1. User comments – Static, non-interactive, and often outdated.
2. Live chat with customer service – But shoppers may not trust company reps for unbiased opinions.

With Now4real:

• Shoppers can chat with each other, ask questions, and share recommendations in real time.
• Retailers can participate in the conversation while keeping the experience authentic.
• Presence counters show product popularity – Display how many people are viewing a product right now, creating urgency and boosting conversions.
• Live trending products – Let visitors see the most popular products in true real-time, increasing engagement and sales.

Now4real works alongside traditional live chat tools, enhancing—not replacing—customer service.

Q: How can Now4real improve travel sites?

Travel websites—from hotel and flight bookings to restaurant and trip recommendations—can use Now4real to turn static pages into live communities.

• Live chat rooms – Every destination, hotel, or experience gets its own chat, allowing visitors to exchange real-time insights.
• Presence indicators – Show how many people are currently reading about a hotel or restaurant.
• A dynamic experience – Instead of browsing alone, visitors feel like they’re part of a travel community.

Q: How can Now4real help blogs?

Now4real lets bloggers and influencers create a real-time interactive experience for their followers.

• Live post rankings – Readers can see which posts are currently trending and join the discussion.
• Instant communities – Visitors chatting in real-time adds an engaging, social dimension to the blog.
• More engagement, more returning visitors – Readers come back not just for new posts but also to check in on ongoing discussions.

Q: How can Now4real benefit web applications?

From business dashboards and CPaaS platforms to stock trading portals and project management tools, Now4real brings real-time interaction into web apps.

• Instant collaboration – Users in the same section of a web app can instantly chat with each other.
• Context-aware conversations – Group chats naturally emerge around specific dashboards, tasks, or features.
• Actionable insights – Archived chat transcripts provide valuable feedback on user needs and behavior.

Q: Can Now4real enhance other types of websites?

Absolutely! Now4real can energize any website by turning pages into virtual meeting spaces where visitors can see each other, interact, and chat in real time. Presence analytics and pagechats bring a new layer of engagement to any type of site.

Pricing

For FAQs related to Now4real pricing, please refer to the Pricing page.