Reading lists for the information society

In his podcast conversation with Robin Good, Pitos Salas of BlogBridge says that OPML/RSS Reading lists must become available to totally non-technical people (and obviously touts BlogBridge as a solution). Many PR professionals tell him they want to setup guides for their clients but don't want them to have to go figure out the complexities of the technologies (where's your reading list Piaras?). Pito also hinted at the excellent educational possibilities of librarian managed lists.

Think of reading lists as dynamically updated, shared and subscribable blogrolls... on steroids. And then imagine the resource that Irish bloggers could build as a contribution to the 'information society' so beloved of our government. For instance, several of the Digital Rights Ireland bloggers could build independent readings lists for those of us trying to get up to speed on the topic and it doesn't even matter if those lists overlap - BlodBridge takes care of duplication. So, Damien, Bernie, TJ and Bernard please let us know the OPMLmanager.com URLs when you've compiled your recommended lists :-)

Comments

[Damien Mulley]

Interesting. Remind me of this over Christmas.

[Piaras Kelly]

Reading list on PR or setting up blogs, podcasts, etc? I wouldn't use RSS for either, I'd set up a del.ici.ous account and link to good articles I come across. Think I might do this now, all I do at the moment is save all good posts in my RSS reader

[James Corbett]

Well that's one way of doing things Piaras but by sharing a reading list you would be providing an "attention lense" which could be applied to many services going forward.

Take Kevin Burton's TailRank.com for instance. That effectively allows me to build my own Memeorandum and import any OPML list I want. So, if I was to import your OPML formatted reading list I could effectively see the world through your eyes! That's what's exciting about Attention data and for the moment it looks like OPML is going to be at least a starting point for Attention applications.

As they say, "Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him life." By givig me your del.icio.us feed you're feeding me with fish. By supplying your OPML attention data (reading list) you're teaching me how to fish. :)

[Fergus Burns]

People are still getting heads around RSS, aggregators, etc - OPML has loads of potential, but its still not part of the "normal" consumption curve.

at the end of the day its a "format" and formats on their own are pretty useless - its the application and data flow that makes this whole space interesting.

Dave Winer is usually head of the curve (rss, podcasting, opml), so people need to pay heed - the race is on to build simple to use applications that leverage the power of these data formats.

[Michele]

Techies might be able to handle OPML, RSS , $someothertechnology, but Joe Punter can't. KISS is the best philosophy.

[James Corbett]

Agreed about KISS Michele. That's why tools like Taskable are so valuable in making use of OPML and RSS while completely hiding the technical side. Every newbie I've shown Taskable to has found it simple and useful. So Joe Punter *can* handle OPML and RSS when its presented to him in the right way. Just like he can handel SMTP, POP and IMAP when its kept behind the curtain in his email client.