Small Update to the OPML Generator

andyed — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 06:28:00 GMT

The OPML generator revealed an interesting use case -- tracking the blogosphere's opinion on specific topics or products through comment feeds. However, this is typically not what folks want to add to their normal subscription list. I've refined control of the return of comment feeds and added the ability to include/exclude category/tag feeds.

I've also added the ability to nest exported OPML rows in a top level category. This facilitates grouping in some news readers. Enjoy your OPML.

Live Search OPML Generator: Bootstrap Your Blogosphere Engagement

andyed — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 07:39:00 GMT

What does it do?: This app runs your query against the Live Search API with the feed: syntax, returning RSS feeds, and assembles an OPML file. You'll get the chance to choose from the results before generating the subscription list.

What is OPML?: An XML format commonly used for managing subscriptions to RSS feeds in readers known as aggregators. Typically, you'll find an import command in your aggregator where you can browse to a .opml.

What can I use it for?

Startup a Blog reading list: Subscribing to blogs is not as easy as it could be and can be time consuming. Bootstrap your blog subscription with this tool.
Subscribe to a community: By crafting a careful query, you can get an instant RSS synch with a whole community of bloggers.
Watch bloggers reactions: Enable comments to get specific blog post comment feeds to track what bloggers are saying about your topic of interest.

Try it out at http://surfmind.com/lab/msn/opml/

Wait until I tell you about combining this with macros! We've just posted the official blog post describing macros V2, following up on a core developer's account from a few weeks ago. There's still more to come.

There's another interesting extension to this technique -- creating a reading list from a search. Reading lists are groups of RSS feeds you can subscribe to, allowing the creator of the reading list to edit the list and you to get the updated feeds automagically. While support is limited across readers right now, it's a very cool idea. I'm not quite ready to invite a world of aggregators to ping my server regularly to get updates; perhaps someone out there is? The Live Search API is available!

Relevant to You? : opml

Small Update to the OPML Generator

Live Search OPML Generator: Bootstrap Your Blogosphere Engagement