This definitely puts the nail in the coffin of the "RSS is dead" contentious debate. Now we can focus on innovations in-and-around RSS. (In response to the Google Reader question, I think that Google will use their HubPubSubHubb in conjunction with Feedburner,- however I suspect they will need to be compatible with rssCloud) Translation for end-users: wait and see. - William Mougayar from FriendFeed MT Plugin

@William Hopefully - its a pointless debate - always was. - Chris Saad

pointless for those who don't care about realtime - Steve Gillmor

lol saying that to me is kinda silly too Steve :) - Chris Saad

Instead of debating, why not just let the API mashup devs do their thing and the rssCloud (RSSCloud?) devs do their thing. We (the social media megaphoners) need to just shut our speculating pieholes, wait, and anticipate being blown away (or not). Turning non issues into issues is SO Web 1.0. #justsayin #rsscloud #api - Mona Nomura

it's not a non-issue, and these technologoies were invented to give people a voice - Steve Gillmor

Mona, you're so wise! :-) - Dave Winer

The fact that we are all here in FF (SUP) vs. discussing via instantized blog/comment volley/query rebuttal is telling. This notion of approaching more realtime options is how blogs might get back to being useful for certain groups of folks. Maybe? - Jay Cuthrell

Real-time is a very important feature Jay - super important. So are a number of other key features of the social web and a number of new emerging features of the next web. - Chris Saad

(didn't mean to inject or hijack anything there btw... this is all good stuff) - Jay Cuthrell

Thanks, Dave. Congrats on the big news, btw! - Mona Nomura

To add - if "real time discussions" are pertinent to your forward thinking, innovations, and products: You're Doing it Wrong. Form opinions, then discuss. If you're wrong, apologize, learn, and move on. #CriticalThinking101 - Mona Nomura

Thanks Mona. :-) - Dave Winer

In hindsight, Steve's obsession with the subject of real-time might have heightened our attention on the debate, but also perhaps hastened the development of rssCloud. I'm sure that in the back of Dave Winer's mind, he wanted to show that Twitter (and Friendfeed to some extent) wasn't the only real-time game in town (in addition to the fact that this hook was already available in RSS since 2001). But let's be realistic. This is subject to the speed of adoption,- so once the subject of real-time is totally neutralized, and the level playing field is reached, then the discussion will shift to the Readers, Aggregators, discussion managers, desktop clients, knowledge managers and publishing mechanisms that need to present this content for the end-user in the most effective manners. - William Mougayar from FriendFeed MT Plugin

William, you'd be 100 percent wrong about that. I was doing this stuff before Twitter or FriendFeed existed. - Dave Winer

I'm not so sure Twitter was ever real time. Only centralized. This made it appear realtime. (Except for the lucky few - i.e. friendfeed) - Jeremy Felt

reagrdless of the prior art discussion, certainly dave's embrace of realtime is good news - Steve Gillmor

amen, Steve - Jesse Stay

@stevegillmor: prior art? What on earth are you trying to say in this context? Since when did prior art have anything to do with real time? Or have I missed something fundamental? - Dennis Howlett

Let's see what happens with all the million Wordpress.com blogs. But I have a felling this will be big but we won't see the impact for a few months - Wayne Sutton from iPhone

@Dennis http://code.google.com/p... - Stephen Edgar

Dave, I'm glad I was wrong (as I hinted to the fact that you had that hook there from 2001). I recall well how Radio Userland and Manila used to interchange feeds in real-time. You sure have kept us in suspense, til now, though! - William Mougayar from FriendFeed MT Plugin

*Hugs Dave Winer over RSSCloud* :) - Susan Beebe