Something new
: Dave Winer is working on an OPML editor. Frankly, I’m not smart enough to figure out exactly what it is or what it means. But when Dave is digging in like this, you can bet there’s a truffle to be found. His explanation:
So you can use the OPML Editor to open and edit subscription
lists for all the major feed readers and aggregators, tune them up, merge
them and split them, publish and share them. Finally, there’s a rational way
to edit the subscription lists.
OPML has also become the standard format for the podcasting directories. All
the nodes in the community directory are edited in OPML, many of them by
hand. Now there’s a tool that’s designed for exactly this purpose.
The OPML Editor is good for all kinds of lists, directories, project
planning, designs. The tool can be used by professionals and managers,
doctors, professors, lawyers, accountants, writers — basically anyone who
thinks for a living.
Another way of looking at it — RSS is great for news, but not everything is
news, some things, like the distance between the Earth and the Sun, or the
elements of the periodic table, don’t change. Or change slowly, like the
teams in major league baseball, or the top home run hitters. For information
like that, knowledge, representing the relationships between nuggets is
what’s important, and that’s where outliners like the OPML Editor, that’s
now in beta, excel.
