I built a real-time news widget that streams (hyper)local news and public records (marriage licenses, liquor permits, etc). Media companies partner with us http://nozzlmedia.com we've doubled the time visitors spend on their Web pages.

Erlang was a good fit for us, mostly because of the tools available around it, such as Nitrogen http://nitrogenproject.com a powerful JavaScript/Erlang framework. Erlang apps seem robust and lean.