Better way to alert users of

...New, up to the minute posts
(sorry got cut off)

I was thinking of creating a process that would query based on unix timestamp the forums' posts made in the last 10-20 minutes.

I could use the pre-existing search function but need to know how much overhead that would cause if people consistenly searched the forum instead of refreshing the forumdisplay and threadisplay (which my users tend to do all the time)

Also would it be much more efficient for me to create my own customized queries as opposed to using the search function?

In general I have learnt from my ubb experience that it would be great if the users could use something less complex yet more useful than the forumdisplay routine to find out what the newest up to the minute (so to speak) posts were.

[Edited by SonnetCelestial on 11-14-2000 at 02:55 PM]

Don't you mean something like http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/search.php?action=getnew ?

Yes and no.

It achieves the same effect but I have no idea if it performs better/equal to:
a) a customized php script
b) a forumdisplay or threaddisplay refresh

I'm simply looking for performance gain. :D

Did I make some sort of sense in the last post or are people just very confused?

you might get a performance gain if you made a search for each forum, that would reduce the load probably