On Wednesday, Facebook began rolling out a new feature: Questions. The idea is simple. You ask a question and the Facebook community can answer. Yes, the ENTIRE Facebook community, not just your friends.

Of course, we've seen something like this before. But Marshall Kirkpatrick of Read Write Web thinks that this is something entirely different:

Marshall Kirkpatrick, ReadWriteWeb

The Real-Time Web: it's more than just immediate delivery of Twitter messages to an always-on mobile device, disrupting the concentration that civilization is based on and bringing a rush to crazed social media addicts obsessed with the hottest new buzzwords. No, there are scores of companies building and selling systems today that deliver very real value via the real-time web.

Here's our list of ten cool companies or services that make use of real-time web in what they do:

It can be hard to convince leadership that working with social media doesn't mean they've been paying you to catch up with friends on Facebook. You've probably heard some of the objections:

• I suffer from information overload already.
• So much of what's discussed online is meaningless. These forms of communication are shallow and make us dumber. We have real work to do!
• I don't have the time to contribute and moderate. It looks like it takes a lot of time and energy.
• Our customers don't use this stuff. The learning curve limits its usefulness to geeks.
• Communicators [bloggers, tweeters] are so fickle, it's better to stay unengaged than risk random brand damage. We don't want hostile comments left about us on any forum we've legitimized.

And there are more. But there are ways you can respond. Here's a list of suggestions: