4. The messaging system of claim 1 wherein the virtual connections formed between entities can be top-level connections, parent tier connections, or closest tier connections.
1. A messaging system for use in a network, the messaging system comprising: a plurality of network entities which include both publishing entities and subscribing entities, the publishing entities publishing content of which the subscribing entities have need, wherein information embedded within the published content defines a data hierarchy for the published content exchanged between the publishing entities and subscribing entities; wherein the data hierarchy defines at least a child tier and a parent tier, where the child tier contains a plurality of published content contributed by a plurality of said publishing entities; and wherein the data hierarchy determines virtual connections formed between the plurality of network entities in response to publication and subscription requests exchanged between the entities, such that the virtual connections established between network entities form a hierarchy corresponding to the data hierarchy, whereby subscription by one of said subscribing entities to the parent tier of the data hierarchy results in the subscribing entity receiving all of said plurality of published content in the child tier; wherein the data hierarchy comprises a plurality of child-tiered data elements that each correspond to a portion of data that forms a parent-tiered data element; wherein different entities publish different ones of the child-tiered data elements; wherein responsive to a subscribing entity's subscription to the parent-tiered data element, the subscribing entity receives the plurality of child-tiered data elements via the virtual connections.