Feed of feeds

Feed of feeds
: UPDATE: Nevermind everything below. I got it screwed up and Lisa straightened me out. I confused two different lists and features.

Turns out that, of course, Dave created exactly what I wanted: Anybody can go here and upload OPML (feed of feed lists). Thanks, Dave.

: Dave Winer started a compilation of the RSS feeds people in his RSS group use — and that’s only the people he allows in. That’s an awfully closed loop. So the results are quite predictable. Interesting, but predictable.

I’d be much more interested in seeing what a wider group reads — RSS reading being an interesting indicator of habitual vs. occasional reading. Here’s hoping that Dave does that, too.

11 responses to “Feed of feeds”

  1. button Avatar

    Jeff, this sounds like you have a vague feeling that you are experiencing an itch that you want to get scratched. But this device presented by Dave Winer at the moment does not satisfy you in scratching your itch.
    You may be relying on sheer dumb luck– just on the off-chance that you come across something that delights you.
    Meanwhile, can you list the specs of what you think you’d like?
    Either a social group is limited and closed in some way or it is open and random– which do you prefer?
    Maybe you could strike a deal with some geek to buy his tribal list…??? ;-) Then you could try a new tribe like once a month to prevent getting bored with the same old trolls.
    Maybe an ideal solution does not exist because you have not expressed the problem so that it is soluble.

  2. David Smith Avatar
    David Smith

    I am part of this RSS users group and I don’t understand your comment! Anyone can join — there’s nothing elitist or hand-picked about it.

  3. Jeff Jarvis Avatar

    David: I’ve seen posts from people who said they were rejected by the group. Were the wrong? I’m not criticizing. I just want it expanded. I just clarified that.

  4. David Smith Avatar
    David Smith

    Jeff,
    News to me — and I’d be more than merely surprised! Where did you read these comments?

  5. Jeff Jarvis Avatar

    This is why I want somebody to create a search just of my RSS feeds (to answer the frequent question: ‘Where did I read that?’). I saw it on two sites. I’ll start looking. As I said, I was really just begging Dave to open this wider in any case, for a group of people who subscribe to an RSS list is, by any criteria, a limited group.

  6. Lisa Williams Avatar

    Actually, you don’t have to be a subscriber to the RSS-User yahoo group email list that Dave runs to use Share Your Feeds. I’m not a subscriber to RSS-User, but I just browsed on up to the website and then uploaded my OPML list of feeds. A lot of the initial people who uploaded their stuff were members of RSS-User because that’s how they found out about it. But anyone can participate in Share Your Feeds.
    What’s cool is that once you upload your list of feeds, you can see a list of the top 100 of the other participants, and it shows you how much you have in common with either the top 100 or any other user who has uploaded their list and chosen to make it publically available.

  7. David Smith Avatar
    David Smith

    Lisa,
    That’s intriguing, too! The site (http://feeds.scripting.com/) says, that first you must ‘become a member of this site’. You side-stepped this stage?

  8. Jeff Jarvis Avatar

    Lisa: Scales off eyes. I screwed up. Thanks. I mixed up two different membership entities. I appreciate the fact-checking.
    jeff

  9. Dave Winer Avatar

    Jeff, the mail list is moderated, simply because RSS-related mail lists tend to flame out, and keep people from discussing things that a few people don’t want us to discuss. There would be no point in starting an unmoderated mail list, it would be like all the others. Predictably, the people who haven’t been let in (only four so far), are making accusations. That’s exactly why they weren’t let in.
    I’m really a fair person, but I’m not stupid. At some point you give up on certain people — I know who they are, they’ve been stopping work for years, and I want to have some fun. So, we go forward without them. C’est la vie.
    Anyway, none of this has anything to do with feeds.scripting.com, other than that’s the first place I tested the application, because they can give me quick feedback, and are professional, polite, and excited. But no one is prevented from sharing their OPML, or receiving shared OPML. That’s a wholly different issue.
    Dave

  10. Lisa Williams Avatar

    David, you do have to “register” to the Share Your Feeds site, but that just means that you set up your own userid so that the site can associate your name and preferences (share/don’t share) with your feeds. There’s no separate approval step that runs through Dave or anybody else on the Share Your Feeds site — registration is instantaneous and all it does is put your name with your stuff. I think the confusion stems from confusing registration with Share Your Feeds, which is totally unrestricted, to the RSS-User email list, which is a moderated list (and in any case as a Yahoo group requires whoever the moderator is to manually approve new users anyway).

  11. David Smith Avatar
    David Smith

    Lisa, Thanks. I didn’t think there was any threshold bar to cross to join the Share Your Feeds site. As Dave says, the two may have been confused because the Yahoo users group is where he first trailed and tested the application. Thanks!