Library clips

I’m just pointing out Joi Ito’s Web blog as I really like the clean sidebar…where can I get boxes that collapse/expand?…my sidebar would look much neater, and less messy/confusing.

In an earlier post I was wondering if you could convert MSWord outlines to OPML, well close to this is a new service that enables you to convert PowerPoint to OPML…this is perfect, PowerPoint, when you think of it, is a type of outline…see OPML Workstation.

You don’t have to host your own PowerPoint files (that is give them a URL and put them on a server)…you can just convert it to OPML and rssLABS will host the OPML URL for you…now when people search in an OPML engine they may find the OPML of your PowerPoint file.

Alex Barnett blogs about this and has created an OPML file via OPML Workbench.

See it at:
OPML Surfer
OPML Browser

Not sure how to browse an OPML URL at OPMLsearch.

Or import it into your own Outlining tool like OPML Manager and go to town on it…actually in the OPML Manager post I queried if you could make a PowerPoint file into OPML:
“…I wonder if you could export a powerpoint outline or word outline as an OPML file…you could import this into OPMLmanager and give a presentation from your outline view, and even give this outline URL to your audience to view later, or give them the OPML file so they can view a rendered outline in OPML surfer.”

You can view the outline of the OPML in an OPML search engine, browser, or outlining tool, but what about being able to convert it back to PowerPoint.
This way all you do is get RSSlabs to host your OPML file, then when someone finds it they can import it into PowerPoint.

Since outlines like Dave Winer’s can include other outlines, does this mean you can view changes that are made in a PowerPoint presentation by subscribing to the OPML file…I think this is a bit wishful…if changes were made to the OPML version of the PowerPoint file (I guess by using an outliner) then the changes would be dynamic to whoever subscribes to that OPML file…is this correct?
This way if we had our own OPML directory (integrating OPML files into our own) it won’t be static, and always show the latest version of the OPML files within your OPML file

…the next is to be notified of changes to an OPML file, this is happening right now with OPML files that contain RSS feeds, but what about OPML files of other types.

…or what about feeds for PowerPoint…

See Jim Moore’s release post.

Can’t we have a blog to OPML tool, blogs are essentially outlines by date, how are they different to PowerPoint, is not each blog post like a PowerPoint slide (excuse my ignorance)?

A while back I was hoping that you could find Technorati Tags limited to a single blog, this way your Technorati Tags at the end of your post could link to see more posts from your blog with that tag, instead of more posts from all blogs with that tag.

If this was enabled once you link to Technorati Tags from one of your blog posts, it could say here are all posts from your blog with this tag, do you want to see posts from the whole blogosphere with this tag.

I wish you could also cover social bookmarking sites, eg. place a tag that points to your user account in del.icio.us, at the end of your blog post…when people click on this tag, they can then have the option to see all bookmarks from the whole of del.icio.us with this tag.

Only thing, is that this is just one social bookmarking service, what about the others…when will we have a Technorati service for social bookmarks.

Related to this I’ve mentioned before I’d like to create an ego search feed for all my blog posts in del.icio.us, at the moment you have to generate a feed for every blog post, now who is going to do that, why can’t they copy Spurl’s technique.
This is the first step, then you’d have to create an ego feed for your blog at every social bookmark service…again where is a bookmark search engine service that does for bookmark services, what Technorati does for blog services.

Anyway, besides Blogdigger, you can now use IceRocket to see tags from a single blog, so you can now point to IceRocket Tags at the single blog level (instead of Technorati Tags) at the end of your blog post.

eg. tag:blogs author:”steve rubel”

tag:blogs +blogId:21658

It doesn’t seem to be an archive of all your posts, this is what I was after without having to use a bookmarking service.

TagWorld has rolled many tag services in one…photo’s, people, music, bookmarks, blogging, etc…some sort of Social Information Manager.

[via TechCrunch] and here.

This is a follow up to the new BlogBridge reading lists, after reading Robin’s interview with Pito, I have a few queries.

When you import an OPML file into BlogBridge can you choose it to be a static list or a dynamic list, or is subscribing to a dynamic list a different process, in that you don’t import an OPML file, you subscribe to a URL of an OPML file?

Also Robin asks if you can make a smart feed (search feed) from a reading list?…this seems to be asking can you create a search feed within a folder from your subscriptions in your RSS reader (Bloglines does this at the whole account level, not at the folder level)
…if BlogBridge can create search feeds at the folder level, then this is great.
Another way to create a search feed from an OPML file is to use Feedster OPML URL search feature.

Provided each folder in BlogBridge has an OPML file URL, like Feedmarker, then using the advanced search in Feedster is possible, unless it can be done in BlogBridge itself.

Since you can override a reading list in BlogBridge, the OPML file URL for that folder (if there is one) will now contain different stuff then the original OPML file URL (reading list)…so you can choose to create a search feed at Feedster from the original OPML file URL or from the modified version in your BlogBridge folder.

If each folder in an RSS reader has an OPML…

If it is a local file, your friend will have to email you the .opml file and you can save it on your PC, then import it into your RSS reader.

If each folder has an OPML URL, this is even better as you can import that straight into your RSS reader, no fuss.

What if you don’t like a lot of the feeds, well just delete them once they are imported…another way is to do this before the import, is by downloading the OPML file to your PC or save the OPML URL to your PC in notepad with the .opml extension.

Now you can look in the file and take out, if you know what you are doing, the feeds you don’t want, then re-save the file, and import this modified version (note this will now give the OPML a new file name).
(This is handy with importing a Bloglines account, just save the OPML file to your PC first, then delete unwanted feeds, then import this modified OPML file into your RSS reader)

Another way to do this with an easier interface (rather than looking at the code) is to import the OPML file or OPML URL into an outlining tool like OPML Manager (note this will now give the OPML a new file name).
Once it is imported you can see a tree outline of the OPML, it’s much easier to delete undesired feeds, or even enter new feeds…then import this new OPML URL into your RSS reader.

Another way is using the OPML Generator…just select the feeds and add them to this list, hit the button and it generates code for an OPML file, just cut ‘n paste this into notepad…you know the rest.

So this is how you can take an OPML, alter it, then import a modified version.

Dynamic circle

The great thing about BlogBridge is that not only is it the only RSS Reader so far that can subscribe to dynamic reading lists, but that (I’m guessing) every folder in your BlogBridge account is a reading list itself.

So if you subscribe to a reading list (OPML URL) and don’t override anything, and then someone subscribes to the OPML of the folder in your BlogBridge account that contains this reading list, it will have exactly the same contents (even though your OPML URL is different than the original OPML URL).

But if you decide to override the feeds in the reading list you subscribe to, then someone subscribing to your reading list (OPML of a folder in BlogBridge) will now receive different content, than if they were subscribing to the original reading list.

And if this person subscribing to your reading list makes some alterations, then their subscribers will see altered content…it just goes on.

And I’m assuming when you import an OPML into BlogBridge that you don’t have to take any of the intermediate steps above to modify the OPML file, as you can probably choose which feeds you would like from the OPML file before finalising your subscription, or I suppose you could delete them after the fact.

On the fly

Wouldn’t it be good if you could create an OPML on the fly…just go to a feed directory or someones public RSS reader and check a box to select the feeds you like, which will then generate an OPML file to download to your PC (once you import this OPML as a folder in your RSS reader, then it can have an OPML URL, provided you use Feedmarker or BlogBridge).
This is a feature in Bloglines that is limited to “Tell a friend”…you can select feeds from your account to send to a friend, and when they set up an account, it will be populated with these feeds
…only if this was developed into an OPML on the fly feature for anyone to create for any purpose.

At the moment you have to subscribe to each feed manually or create an outline of your own to import into your RSS reader, but why do this extra step when you can enter them all in manually anyway…well you will have an OPML file version as well…but if all folders in RSS readers begin to have OPML file’s then we won’t need an outline as much for this purpose.

But the idea is, if all public RSS readers or feed directories, or even the search results next to the source name in RSS engines had a check box, we could make this process so much quicker.

I suppose this is liking asking a similar question like having an RSS check box next to each source on search engine results so we can make a spliced feed on the fly.

The only difference with the OPML on the fly is that the search engine won’t have to offer a permanent URL, you can save the temporary OPML URL, and download it to your PC with notepad using the .opml extension, then import this into your RSS reader, once this is done the temporary OPML from the search engine can disappear.

Whereas with spliced feeds even if they are synthetic (ie. there isn’t a HTML version, just the XML version…I think this is what it means) you still need a permanent URL.

[ADDED: As long as you could create an OPML file on the fly, then you could convert this into a spliced feed using a service like OPML2RSS, or maybe Feed Digest in the future.]

Joining the likes of CommonFlix is MyFilmz, the latest folksonomy from the maker of MyProgs, Bank of Ideas, Reader2, TagFacts…it seems all that is missing is music…for video folksonomies see here.

Actually does anyone know of any music folksonomies, I just got a new home computer and I’m interested in checking out some music…I also came across a games folksonomy, Millions of Games (besides tagging there is also some system categories to select for each bookmark).

Anyway I know del.icio.us and other bookmark systems will have tags for music artists or genre…using the del.icio.us system audio tags is a bonus, but what about a folksonomy just for music…a Google search doesn’t help, although it does point to lots of music tags in various folksonomies.

I checked out the music tag on supr.c.ilio.us (a folksonomy that lists folksonomies), this lead me to:

- LastFM
(Is there a way to download these songs, or do you have to login to listen?)

In all a superb folksonomy: tags, user pages, friends, neighbourhood, groups, journal (blogging) with comments, your own music charts, radio (music streams based on a tag from all users), download a music player, also download audioscrobbler (sends the name of every song you play on your PC to Last.fm), and much more…more sharing, discovery, and recommendations that you can handle!

- CommonTunes
(This seems to allow you to download mp3’s, unlike Last.fm…not sure if you can do this on Last.fm.)
(Also has a podcast feed)

- Music for Dozens
(more for uploading songs for amateur musicians)

- swagroll
(seems to include more than just music)

Other lists:
- WebJay
(based on user playlists, downloads available)
- basic.ch
- liveplasma
(mapped neighbourhood)
- Riffin
(not yet released)

Blogs:
- mp3blogs.org
(it seems it’s not operating)
- Technorati Blog Finder
(type in a tag of a music genre, or just search the main search engine, or even the tag engine)

Social bookmarks:
- see this post

Other search engines:
- There must be a compile somewhere, Phil Bradley is probably the man…here’s a Google search anyway.

p2p:
- Kazaa…probably some others in this list.

Other:
GetRight
(download manager)…more

Related thoughts

On this note I was also thinking about a folksonomy for bookmarklets, I know blummy lets you create them (blummets), discover and add them to the list, and can store all your bookmarklets in one container bookmarklet, but it is lacking tagging and a user space to share and discover bookmarklets in a folksonomy environment.

[ADDED: Tagworld - folksonomy]

[ADDED: musicmobs - folksonomy]

[ADDED: MusicStrands - folksonomy]