An approach on getting real time communication for backbone models without spamming channels for cometd. Can be easily updated to work for socket.io . Requires PubSub. The same approach can be used for sending information through channels.

cometdconn.js

//..
socket.subscribe('channel',function (data){
    var data = JSON.parse(data.data);
    // or you could search in a collection for the package you are looking for and handle the result
    PubSub.publish('topic'+data.id, data);
});

realtimemodel.js

(function (namespace, com) {
    "use strict";

    var RealtimeModel = {
        /**
         * @method
         * @name realtimeBind
         * @param {String} eventName
         * @param {Function} callback
         * @param {Object} context (optional): Object to interpret as this on callback
         */
        realtimeBind: function (eventName, callback, context) {
            this.bind(eventName, callback, context);
            return this;
        },
        /**
         * @method
         * @name realtimeListen
         * @param {String} namespace
         */
        realtimeListen: function (namespace,id) {
            var self = this;

            this.realtimeSubscriptions = this.realtimeSubscriptions || {};

            if (!this.realtimeSubscriptions[namespace]) {

                var handleResult = function (topic,data) {
                    var args = [namespace];
                    args.push.apply(args, [data]);
                    self.trigger.apply(self, args);

                    if (data.errorCode) {
                        //handle fail here
                    }
                };

                // listens for a message on a given topic on PubSub and
                // triggers the handle function
                // manages the subscription so it can be removed later on
                this.realtimeSubscriptions[namespace] = com.subscribe('topic'+this.id,handleResult);
            }
            return this;
        },
        /**
         * unsubscribes all connections that were made by the realtime
         * component
         * @method
         * @name cleanRealtimeSubscriptions
         */
        cleanRealtimeSubscriptions: function () {
            for (var subscription in this.realtimeSubscriptions) {
                if (this.realtimeSubscriptions.hasOwnProperty(subscription)) {
                    com.unsubscribe(this.realtimeSubscriptions[subscription]);
                }
            }
            return this;
        }
    };

    return namespace.RealtimeModel = RealtimeModel;
}(window, PubSub));