An RSS feed for an OPML that contains non-feed items
This was going to be a response to a comment in an earlier post, but I thought I’d shout louder.
I know you can now subscribe to an OPML in your own OPML file, which is dynamically updated, but what about notification of this update?
What I meant in my post was…Can you subscribe to the RSS feed of an outline?
… so when something new is added to the outline, you can read about that latest addition in your RSS reader.
This is something I’ve harped on about in the past.
I want to make various outlines, simple one level lists, one for RSS tools, OPML tools…each time I add an item to one of these outlines I’d like people to be notified by RSS.
If I merged these outlines into one, then I’d need a feed for each folder…
Is the only way to do this if the outline is not in a tree, but is presented in a hyperlinked fashion?
Does this make sense?
I can do this in del.icio.us…everytime I add a item to a tag, you can be notified if you subscribe to the feed of the tag…but then del.icio.us doesn’t have folders within folders if I want to go with this option…but it does have a tag bundle, but then the bundle doesn’t have a URL let alone a spliced feed for all the tags within it.
Also I’d rather use OPML as it is a much more portable and I’d to be able to browse the outline within the sidebar of my blog…which is now possible.
I just had an idea I could make an OPML file out of several del.icio.us tag feeds, this way I would have a feed for each folder in the outline, I could also make a feed for the whole outline at Feed Digest…this way the outline doesn’t have to have a factory built feed/s, I can offer them from elsewhere.
I could also go with Wink which is similar to del.icio.us, but you can also make several lists of links (each with its own permalink) within the one tag, this way I could have a feed for each list, and a feed for the tag (all the lists).
Then I could place the outline tree on my sidebar, which could also show the latest posts within each folder…see this post.
The only problem is that my outline on my blog sidebar will only show the latest posts within each folder…it isn’t an archive…if you were to go to where my outline lives you would see a tree where each folder has one item (an RSS feed), whereas I want to see an archive of all items within the outline (not have to go to the native lists at del.icio.us).
Hang on…if each del.icio.us tag had an OPML file, then I could subscribe to several OPML’s within my OPML…would this show an archive of every item in each tag?
And I could offer a feed for each folder in my outline via del.icio.us…because as far as I know folders in outlines don’t have their own feeds…then I’d splice a feed at Feed Digest to make a feed for my whole outline.
(NOTE: if I added non-del.icio.us items to this outline, they wouldn’t be automatically included in the feed for the whole outline…this outline would be resticted to one purpose only)
Even better if a del.icio.us tag bundle had an OPML file, I could import this (subscribe) into my OPML, and have an instant outline, in one go, of the tag bundle name followed by a folder for each tag, listing all items in each folder…this could then be included on the sidebar of my blog.
Each time I add a new link to a del.icio.us tag within this tag bundle it would dynamically reflect in my OPML outline, so the outline tree on my blog sidebar would always be up-to-date with changes as well.
My sidebar could also offer a feed for each folder in the outline (ie. each tag feed from my del.icio.us bundle), this way people could be notified of new stuff to each folder in the outline…a feed for the whole outline could be made at FeedDigest.
Otherwise I’m back to square one, making an outline with several folders, and adding new links within each folder as they come along…I can put this on my sidebar where you can browse the tree.
This is the cleanest and easiest option, but how are you notified of new items in the whole outline or within just a folder, if outlines don’t come with built in feeds.
Only if you could do a blank OPML search at Feedster….I would make several separate OPML files, each time I update one you could be notified (via the RSS search feed made from the Feedster OPML URL search)
Then I could subscribe to all these OPML files in one mega OPML file, and also offer a spliced feed made at FeedDigest
…the blog sidebar could choose to offer the mega-OPML outline or all the separate outlines.
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You got it!
Now imagine if in addition to regular text based feeds you could create rss feeds for all sorts of stuff. you pointed-out del.icio.us booksmarks. don’t forget flickr.com photos.
Now what about the rest of your life?
How about a feed for the books you own? check-out librarything.com
How about a feed for the stuff you desire? check-out wists.com
Basically, it’s possible to use urls to capture most things in your life. then take that url and create a rss feed from it. then organize them all in an opml file and finally view them all in blogbridge dynamic reading lists.
My question is when you rss readers expand their horizons and become places where we can store all the data about ourselves.
Wouldn’t it be cool if you had a list of all the groceries you bought last year and the recipes the powered those shopping lists?
my vision for web2.0 is a bunch of SaaS websites that enable folks to imput data about themselves (in multiple mediums- booksmarks, urls, photos, texts, skus, ect) about the software service will reconfigure your data in new and original ways.
We’re getting closer!
Tim Post | Boston
http://www.opmlmanager.com/opml/postzavtra.opml
Comment by Timothy Post — December 14, 2005 @ 5:35 am
FeedDigest will be significantly better for part of this task in future.. OPML import and export
OPML export is semi-beta in there now already, but import is on its way. We have mega updates in the next month, including those “stats” which we’ve been promising for oh so many months now.
Comment by Peter Cooper — December 15, 2005 @ 2:36 am