LinkBlox: OPML link list in your sidebar
LinkBlox from BlogBox is simply a link box for your blog sidebar. Now you can list your favourite links or your blogroll in a box on your sidebar that will always be up to date, also these links can be organised by topics…runs in flash, very nifty.
There is an option to enter an outline into BlogBox via an OPML URL, the links will be arranged in the folders, mirroring your outline…it also takes advantage of dynamic OPML…the contents in the blogbox is always current with the latest changes at your OPML outline.
I guess this is similar to OPod, Bitty Browser, and OPML Renderer (soon OPML Renderer will have the latest features from Optimal)…the only thing is I don’t think you can use it as a Reading List (ie. the items in the OPML URL are feeds), where you can read the contents of the feed within the box.
I guess this is another option of a simple blogroll, first it started with BlogRolling, then some RSS Readers like Bloglines create code for a blogroll, but now you can have your blogroll in OPML and publish it anywhere.
It is much more versatile in OPML as you can use it with services that accept OPML…with the Bloglines blogroll you are limited to a code script, ie. you can only publish the blogroll, whereas in OPML format you can also publish the blogroll, but it can be used as a data exchange format, people can import the data contained in the OPML into services.
So it is not only a publishing format, but a data exchange format, and if the items are feeds it is also a subscription format…personally I would use Bitty or OPod for blogrolls, but instead of blog homepages for each item, you can have blog feeds for each item (this is a more active blogroll, a Reading List)…and even read the latest posts from within the box.
Anyway, Linkblox isn’t neccessarily for blogrolls, use it for anything.
Now imagine if a del.icio.us tag had an OPML URL, an archive of all the bookmarks within a tag would be browsable in your blog sidebar…what about if a del.icio.us tag bundle had an OPML URL, then each topic in your linkblox could be a del.icio.us tag.
Who is going to be the first social bookmark service to enable OPML URL’s, this way we can have portable Link Lists…once a bunch of links organised by tag is in OPML, you can publish it, export/import it into services, etc…
So far H2O Playlist seems to be the only service of its kind offering OPML, but this is more of a list display, and not a bookmark manager per se…so if you have made a H2O Playlist try displaying it in LinkBlox, or even OPod, Bitty, or OPML Renderer.
Each H2O Playlist has section headings, but unfortunately these won’t appear as topics in the OPML rendition, it just comes out as a flat list.
![email.png](http://services.nexodyne.com/email/icon/GxbiQvgbwBgCnw%3D%3D/oIp%2BJMQ%3D/R01haWw%3D/0/image.png"){kind=icon}
