I have no idea why you're getting so much pushback. Products like those offered by Bloomberg ingest and distribute massive amounts of data in real time, as well. The comparison is completely suitable.

While their products for investment managers are mostly run off of persistent databases, the trader terminals rely on a high-volume, nebulous fan out. For many traders, a five second latency is unacceptable.

Incredibly interesting talk and a good write up. Twitter continues to impress! I was surprised to see Redis playing such a critical role, too.