I got two great headlines from Steve Rubel today. One is about Dave Winer’s new platform for sharing OPML files. In a nutshell, an OPML file is an exported list of all the RSS feeds you subscribe to. When you upload your exported OPML file into Winer’s database, others can browse through your list of feeds and find new and interesting feeds to subscribe to.
Anil Dash talked about OPML in his talk at our seminar. He thinks they’re a big part of the future of the Web, and it seems like Rubel agrees. I like his conclusion that OPML aggregators like this one will allow marketing types to get a better read on what blogs are influential. The problem with this of course is that so far the site’s top 100 list is all “big head” and not Long Tail. I’d like to see people be able to tag each individual feed, creating a folksonomy that will hopefully help the real gems of the “Long Tail” rise to the top.
The other headline from Rubel today announced that the BBC had launched its own API for developers and creators of mashups. This is something we talk about at length in Chapter nine of our upcoming book. Part of offering content on demand is giving developers/mashup people the opportunity to create new ways of using and cross-referencing that content.
Way cool!
Update 9:11 p.m. PST: Neville Hobson has a great post about OPML and its uses.
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