RSS: Does it push signals out indicating new content?

Question

Quick question:

When I'm in Google Reader, it will flash and pop up a new number of unread items indicating that a new article has just been published (typically <1 minute after the blog's "published date"). Does Google just constantly ping every blog I'm subscribed to, or does the RSS standard have some sort of "signal" that it puts out to subscribing agents when new content it put up?

Thanks for any clarification!

I'm currently running an app that is based on RSS feeds, but I have a cron job running hourly to scour the interwebs for new content, but I'd love to know more about how to solve the "I need realtime" problem without overstaying my API call welcome.

Answer 1

" Does Google just constantly ping every blog I'm subscribed to"

Yes.

"does the RSS standard have some sort of "signal" that it puts out"

No.

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If you want real time information, contact the vendor and pay them to send you stuff. Seriously. If information has value, then timely information has more value. If you want it sooner, you have to pay to get it before the folks who are getting it for free.