While it is NOT real-time, it is a running ticker of recent blog posts from all sorts of blogs (and not yet by category) ... very similar to what one might see on Twitter or Friendfeed a few minutes earlier, depending on who you are following.
With no 'announced' deal with Twitter, it appears that Google (which has been indexing many blogs within minutes of publication for well over a year), is recognizing that beyond 'trends', the real-time web machine is starting to hit home with a lot of people, in a variety of industries, in a big way.
I refreshed it a few times today and it's NOT limited to blogs that appear in Google News. It is a very diverse feed.
Is it a challenge? An experiment? ... or just a new (or relatively new) feature?
Will it go real-time?
No doubt from comments made in the past by Google executives, they certainly recognize the importance of the latest trend on the 'net (Real Time).
The question now is how, when, and where will they deploy it.
Updated July 25 2 AM ET