ZapTXT RSS Filtering and Notification. Currently in Beta.
An upcoming feature in ZapTXT will allow users to combine several RSS feeds into one OPML file and then define search criteria for that file.
Grazr is an RSS Reader/OPML Browser application that is currently in alpha testing. The site has a Grazr Sandbox demo where you can try it out. Just submit a feed or OPML URL and go. You can also download the javaScript to get Grazr for your own web page.
The virtual self versus the real self while emo-blogging (emotionally flogging the keyboard without thinking). What is really going on with your virtual self? From the Penny-Arcade:
Opmlmanager is an online webservice that makes maintaining your own opml-file very easy. This opml-file can be a file that is part of a distributed directory, like the ipodder directory, a subscription list, or a reading list.
Update Feb 15, 2007:
The OPML Workstation URL now points to a site called Intelligent Teams. Could not find an about page or contact information. The member sign-up page says: “Meet members. Join teams. Play video, widgets, music, friends. Create multimedia folios.”? I guess OPML Workstation is no more.
OPML Workstation is a web-based integrated service for creating, hosting and publishing OPML files.
The site provides for uploading of OPML into your hosted folders. You can manually upload an OPML file from your desktop or from a URL, cut and paste OPML, or convert PowerPoint files into OPML files.
OPML Workstation is a free and easy to use web-based service, and they provide a Directory of Public OPML Files. Give it a try.
Experiment with OPML. Download the free OPML Editor for Windows or Mac and use it as an outline based weblogging tool.
The editor comes with a built in weblog tool we used to create a basic weblog that is hosted on opml.org.
Tom Morris put together Tom’s Unofficial OPML Documentation (OPML Editor Documentation, What is OPML and the OPML Editor?), which provides helpful information to get you started.
Visit Tom’s OPML Blog, and Amyloo’s OPML Blog for a sense of the community and Blog styles. There is also additional information at support.opml.org
Caveat from opml.org:
Use this tool as a way to experiment with the blogging feature, but don’t count on this being the permanent home for a weblog.
You can use the OPML Editor’s built-in NewsRiver.root tool to subscribe to RSS feeds and read them ‘River of News’ style on your desktop.
If you have a Wordpress weblog you can use the Wordpress tool to post from the OPML Editor to your WordPress blog.
Phil of Platform Wars says about Dave of Scripting News:
He has people talking about OPML for reading lists, OPML for attention data (in the year of attention), an OPML network of world outlines, OPML as a replacement for traditional CMS, live outlining for intra-corporate communications etc.
Update: 05/13/06 You can share your OPML outlines and feeds at Share your OPML. From their FAQs page:
The purpose of this site is to gather a community of subscription lists, in OPML format, and aggregate them in interesting ways.
OPML Camp is scheduled in May:
Harvard University’s Berkman Center is joining with the Boston area OPML community to present OPML Camp on May 20-21 at Harvard Law School. OPML is a Web based format that makes it easy to create structured outlines of RSS feeds and links to websites.
OPML (Outline Processor Markup Language) is all a-buzz right now and sparking conversations across the web!
Additional OPML Links
OPML (Outline Processor Markup Language) is an XML format for outlines. Originally developed by Radio UserLand as a native file format for an outliner application, it has since been adopted for other uses, the most common being to exchange lists of RSS feeds between RSS aggregators.
Alternative specifications have been proposed. One such specification is OML. While very similar to OPML, OML forces a separation between data presentation and content; it also treats textual content as an XML element. OPML, by contrast, treats textual content as an XML attribute, which limits its extensibility and precludes the possibility of nested XML elements within textual content, but makes OPML somewhat simpler to code by hand in a text editor.
Reference: @ Wikipedia
McD posted about ‘How to Stop Blogging’, and then he deleted his Wordpress blog.
McD:
Unify real and virtual selves in some temporal plane.
Huh? My comment to his post is below. Real self and Virtual self are fictional characters. Any resemblance to real people is certainly coincidental.
Real self:
It is just a web site and a huge time drain on your real-life, right?
Where is the value in these self-indulgent little weblog thingies anyway? Thought you might enlighten, uplift, encourage, tickle the virtual readers? Ha! They don’t care. Somehow, you just can’t bring yourself to stop blogging can you? Man, just delete the dang thing already.
Virtual self:
Delete it? But I poured my heart and soul into this little baby. Have you taken some time to look under the hood? Have you seen how smoothly it shifts gears? Noticed how it carries the readers leisurely through green pastures one day, and then goes into overdrive and dumps them down the rabbit hole the next?
Real self:
Ah, it’s just a website remember? Not real life. If you want to stop blogging, you can just stop. Stop for a day, for a month, or stop forever. But you really don’t need to delete it all to stop, do you?
Virtual self:
You mean, I can just stop? I do not need to delete it? Are you sure? Oh, OK. Are there anonymous groups I can join for help in dealing with this?
Unification of selves without outside intervention is fruitless.
Performance and service issues at the hosted blog applications has users bouncing in and out of the popular services while frantically seeking a safe harbor for their weblog.
We reported on the Wordpress.com performance and access issues last week. Now here is more, if a bit out of context.
Posted by Wordpress users:
I’ve had it, I’m going to Typepad.
I’ve been unable to access my blog for 3 days, I’m going back to Blogger.
Wordpress is a nice publishing system. It is just too bad that I don’t have my own hosting, to be able to utilize all of its features. Thus, wanting more, mainly in terms of flexibility (of templates and code), I’m moving to Blogger.
From the Wordpress team:
We had some problems with the DB and with SSL and IE interaction that were causing frustration for you and preventing sleep for us. Those problems should be fixed now, and we apologize for the bad experience. This service may be free, but that doesn’t mean we are excused when something breaks. Thanks for sticking with us during the rough spot.
Message from the SixApart Typepad status blog:
We are currently experiencing some slowness within the application. We are actively researching this issue, and will post more information as it becomes available.
The performance issues at Typepad prompted a user there to post:
Typepad slowness - I’m outa here. I let it out a couple of days ago that I have been developing a new blog on my own hosting provider (btw, it’s Wordpress).
And over at Blogger:
Despite some claims that searching on ‘blogger sucks’ (with the quote marks) will get 700,000 hits. The fact that Blogger is getting so much bad press should prompt the Blogger/Google folks to take some action.
Wordpress.com is free. Blogger is free. Typepad though not expensive, is not free.
They each have had, and will have their performance/service issues, but overall I feel that Wordpress is the most reliable. WordPress.com is easy to use, fun, has a growing community, and is still free.
Huh? Do you need to:
Visit the Web Economy Bullshit Generator to make your very own Web BS.
What’s a google? Not a joke. Not a scientific sampling. An observation. Obviously, anyone who uses the internet for more than just basic email, knows about G@@gle.
I did say in my Just google it post, “while I was out running errands”.
Given certain geographical, socio-economic locations in the real world, it is reasonable to encounter people who do not even have PCs, or those who use a dial-up connection just for email. Throw in another percentage who could care less about or have little knowledge of search tools, and there you go.
Still, I was surprised that I happened to hit 20 out of 20 people in a short span of time who responded with “What”. Welcome back to the real world.
This started because whenever someone in the real world asks me about something, and I don’t know the answer, I often respond automatically with, did you google it? Suprising how many people say, “what?”. So I spent a little time asking a VERY few random people. Random people DO know about Google, but technophobic people in some geo locations seem not to.
Don’t get me started on cell phones.
Tracking Grazr, RSS reader and OPML browser application. Alpha phase.
