On PubSubHubbub and rssCloud ...
Here's how the confusion came about: — Dave Winer invented rssCloud way back in the day. It only distributed lite pings, the callback endpoint was the IP address …
Context & Ripple Effects
A week after Workbench argued RSSCloud failed to catch on because of its thin spec and IP-address callbacks, Brad Fitzpatrick steps in to untangle the naming mess between two real-time push protocols for feeds: Dave Winer's rssCloud, which sends lite pings to an IP callback endpoint, and PubSubHubbub. The timing matters because Winer has just confirmed he is working with WordPress to wire the cloud element and RSSCloud Interface into the platform, making rssCloud suddenly operational at scale rather than a historical curiosity.
This is also a long-running argument entering a new round: Winer had spent years pushing feed infrastructure forward, from his case for how RSS can bust through into mainstream use to his aggregator work in 2005. With Twitter-style immediacy now the benchmark, the question of which push mechanism feeds adopt is a fight over who controls real-time distribution outside the walled services.
First-order effects
- Feed publishers and platform implementers — WordPress most visibly through its work with Winer — must now pick between rssCloud and PubSubHubbub, or support both, when wiring real-time notifications into their feeds.
Second-order effects
- Aggregator and reader developers face duplicated integration work if both protocols fragment adoption, pressuring them toward whichever hub network has more live publishers.
Third-order effects
- If one push standard wins, open feeds regain the latency advantage that made centralized status services feel faster, shifting real-time distribution away from closed platforms and back toward the open RSS ecosystem.
The trend: Open web publishing is racing to retrofit real-time push onto RSS before proprietary silos make polling-based feeds look obsolete.