Peter Caputa's got a post about RSS and internet advertising that does a good job arguing the point that RSS is empowering new ad models--but he misses the point that Matt McAllister and I are talking about content/information, not advertising, and that RSS can disintermediate content just as surely as search did/does.
Peter says "The very definition of online advertising may be that it is always being intermediated. Until, of course, it is all pay per action."
--And he offers examples of cool API s that can be tweaked and bundled together into new tools and services, all great stuff.

But Pete--for big publishers-this ain't about advertising.
It's about companies that care about metrics like number of subscriber and number of newsstand sales having to rethink everything--from what they're willing to publish on their web site to the fact that putting up articles on their web site just isn't enough anymore--now they need to distribute via RSS and onto multiple platforms AND have new revenue models AND figure out where their audience is going--and meet them there (Xbox, anyone?) --and they are going "Wow, so fast!"

And it's not that these guys don't get it--they do--but think of them as the big Hummers tooling along the roadway, and the emerging tech/social media publishers of the world as the bicycles gliding along.

If RSS is a traffic jam, who gets through first?
And how do those guys in the Hummers cope with that? (We already know how the cyclists are doing.)