Share Your OPML
Monday, May 08, 2006
Dave's done it again: unleashed something so simple in concept and yet so intriguing in execution. Share You OPML is a web site where you can share your OPML lists (surprise). In this case, lists of RSS feeds. It then ranks the feeds based on popularity and provides the 'top 100' list back to the user in XML format.
So far I've seen several blogs report on this, and a lot of them seem to make the same assumptions that Dwight over at the Houston Chronicle makes. He defines OPML loosely as:
...it's a file that contains a list of RSS feeds. Most RSS readers will let you export your feeds as an OPML file, which you can then import into another reader, or give to a friend.
In the case of Dave's new site, he and the others are right. But I see the new site not as the product, but the example of what can be done with the product. Forget RSS lists for a moment and consider the sharing and mashing and repacking of lists containing any kind of information.
And although the idea of turning all of that into a "top 100" list is fun and gets attention, I think the real point here is to show that when you share and mash lists of anything together, you can come up with something totally different from, and more useful than, the individual lists themselves.
posted by Russell @ 10:50 AM,
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