RSS Readers: pay attention to OPML!
We really need to be able to pass around packets of feeds in an OPML file…it is inevitable that most RSS readers will allow you to:
- tag feeds in multiple folders/tags
- RSS feed for each folder/tag
- OPML file for each folder/tag
- RSS feed for your whole account
- OPML file for your whole account
Bloglines only allows you to file a feed in one folder, and only your whole account has an OPML file…very limiting.
Feedmarker allows you to file or tag feeds in folders/tags and each tag has an OPML file…Rojo does the same, and allows you to export an OPML file by folder/tag, so these 2 RSS readers are in the lead (not sure if other RSS readers on the market also have these features).
This is great as you can make loads of OPML files from the one account.
The other great thing is tagging feeds into multiple tags…reason being is that you may want a feed to appear in 2 or more OPML files.
eg. you may have a library feed in your “library” tag/folder, but you may want to also have it in your “must read essentials” tag/folder…this is a limitation with Bloglines. By having a feed in 2 folders/tags they can be made available in 2 different OPML files.
So you can make these various OPML files straight from your RSS reader, this is a bonus as you are managing your feeds anyway, so tagging and folder/tag OPML files made available in some RSS readers make this a convenient process.
A tool such as RSSor (a folksonomy for feeds) could definitely be in the market store OPML files for RSS feeds…so could a similar service like aggRSSive (this seems to be ahead of Feed Digest as not only can you splice feeds but you can share them in a simple folksonomy environment, Feed Digest also lacks OPML output).
Of course you can make OPML file’s of your favourite feeds other ways (Blogdigger groups, OPML manager, etc…) but what is great about making them from an RSS reader, is that you probably already manage your feeds in an RSS reader, if the folders/tags you manage your feeds in have an OPML file, well, then your work is already done…and if you want a feed to appear in multiple OPML files, well, the ability to tag your feeds allows this, and avoids the need to make new folders to create a new OPML file.
FeedDemon is going a step further and adding notions of “attention data” to an OPML file.
From the post:
“We need a way to rank feeds that makes sense across aggregators, so that when you export OPML from one aggregator, the aggregator you import into would know which feeds you’re paying the most attention to. This could be used for any number of things - recommending related feeds, giving higher ranked feeds higher priority in feed listings, etc.”
![email.png](http://services.nexodyne.com/email/icon/GxbiQvgbwBgCnw%3D%3D/oIp%2BJMQ%3D/R01haWw%3D/0/image.png"){kind=icon}
