Poignant Winer left out in cold at PDC

It must be hard being a “Digerati” and a “Connector” but not to get invited to the main feast. It seems that Dave Winer is not getting asked to big do’s anymore. Here’s his take on the PDC (Professional Developers Conference), just concluded in Los Angeles :

Now that the PDC is over, I also gotta say it was disappointing to not have had a place there, after seeing so many people were invited, and to have my work featured so prominently. I even asked for an invite. It seems the tech industry cares more about not being criticized than in building something that works. That certainly describes Google, and I was surprised to find out it also describes today’s Microsoft. I would have been happy to work the hallways at PDC, maybe even speak. I wonder why I didn’t get an invite. Maybe someone there on their Team RSS can explain. Was it an oversight? Did anyone ask if I should be part of the RSS conversation at PDC? It left a really bad feeling, and not much of a basis for working together in the future. I’m behind the curve now, I don’t know what they’re doing with RSS, I find myself in the awkward position of having to tell reporters who ask what I think that they know more about what MS is doing in RSS than I do. I wonder if anyone in Redmond thought about that. Scoble had the presence to pick up the phone and call on Tuesday, but that was the extent of communication from Microsoft about the PDC.

For what it’s worth, my understanding is that Microsoft is particularly concentrating on RSS 2.0 (Winer’s baby) across its platforms. What is going on here? Has he passed his sell-by-date?