So while Twitter, Facebook and the major search engines battle it out in providing real-time information services to web users, here’s something that we might have not expected to happen this soon – RSSCloud. WordPress.com has announced that all blog on the WordPress.com and blogs that will install the RSSCloud plug-in will soon have instant updates published to any RSS readers. To kick this off, a new RSS Reader just went live supporting RSSCloud- River 2. And another one called LazyFeed has also announced that it will support RSSCloud.
So, what is RSSCloud really? According to Read and Write Web:
“RSSCloud is an element that’s always been present in the RSS 2.0 spec but has drawn new attention with the rise of interest in the Real-Time Web.”
What RSSCloud will do is to make available blog updates as quickly as a blogger hits the “publish” button from their WordPress blog. Before it usually takes around 60 minutes before an RSS reader picks up a new blog posts. So, that basically means that RSSCloud is ushering the era of a really “real-time” blogging.
RSSCloud was already added to the WordPress code and is being rolled out to blogs running on the WordPress.com server.
RSSCloud came just in time when the popularity of RSS feeds is starting to wane due to the more up-to-date microblogging service provided by Twitter, and the “pseudo-microblogging” feature of Facebook updates. Even Friendfeed has taken its share of popularity away from RSS Feeds. And who knows what will happen when the Facebook-Friendfeed tandem goes full blast?
