Weeks after making Recent Comments a member of the real-time club, Echo’s latest (and biggest) move is Echo River. The new Echo River product is a news stream that turns static websites into dynamic ones, displaying headlines as they come. The “live updating” concept isn’t new for websites, but it’s one that hasn’t been readily applied to online publishing, such as blogs and news sites.

It has, however, been applied to social networking and search. What Echo has created is a tool to combine the social and discovery appeal of the real-time web, making many of its early commenting widget ideals more relevant for today’s purposes. Mark and I got an early chance to check out the new features, and we’re pretty impressed.

Echo River is essentially still a widget, from an operational standpoint. It’s embedded on your site, and is customizable, as with other Echo products. Included in the Echo Pro account, Echo River is designed as a specialized feature to accompany its other products and services. Supporting Disqus, WordPress and IntenseDebate comments systems, Echo River incorporates comments via RSS as well.

A fresh headline, for example, will include a title link, author name and photo. “Own your words and [put] your face right next to them,” says Chris Saad, VP of Strategy at Echo. Displaying author info and including readers’ reaction comments is a powerful mechanism for involving an audience.

Combining real-time comments with real-time content is a big shift for Echo, as it’s been known primarily for comments systems. Echo River represents a graduation to web content as well as comments, while also providing an entirely new perspective towards making that content more potent. Evolving alongside the publishing industry, Echo has found that an emphasis on individual users largely contributes to user engagement.