The Social Net: future of internet

I recently had the pleasure of chatting with Marshall Kirkpatrick of ReadWriteWeb at the Real Time Web summit, held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA.

I'll write a bit more about my take on the Real Time Web, but will let Marshall describe it in his own words.  It might be helpful to take a look at his Human/Machine Continuum to put the real time web into perspective first, to see how our communications using the web have evolved in just a few short years.

What are your thoughts?  Are YOU using the real time web?  What do you find useful about the real time web, and what could you do without?

Is the real time web actually making your life any better?