Interesting, but has to be put in an iframe to enable the user to see the end of the page navigation etc.
Also, for big datasets, it should unload the first items as you scroll. Also the scroller is deceptive - if it's in an iframe, perhaps it can be overriden to show where you really are in the virtual dataset. Enable dragging it for quick positioning too.
You can just update a div in an ajaxy way, you don't need an iframe.
There are definitely some things I don't like about this approach, though, namely SEO/SEM considerations - content on the fly invites poor indexing of content (i.e., no content) if you're using an onload to pull the first n items, spiders won't see what you have to say.
Images search on live.com does this. It's definitely great for image search since it's very easy to glance at an image and know if it's what you're looking for. I like it better than pagination for text search results but I think the issue is that it reduces ad revenue.
DZone (www.dzone.com) has that endless pagination thing. If you scroll the articles down, they just keep loading up.
I've got to admit I'm conflicted about this issue. On one hand, what the heck is the point in making the users flip through a dozen pages? Simply to get more hits and ad revenue? On the other hand, the google-can't-index-you issue sucks. And users are used to using the back button and paginators at the bottom of the screens. I guess right now I think that pageless navigation is a "better" way, but I'm not sure the users or market has caught up with it yet.
Also, for big datasets, it should unload the first items as you scroll. Also the scroller is deceptive - if it's in an iframe, perhaps it can be overriden to show where you really are in the virtual dataset. Enable dragging it for quick positioning too.
Not that simple, it turns out.