Interesting ideas in OPML 2.0 spec
Tuesday, August 28th, 2007Dave Winer is working on the next version of the OPML specification, and there are a number of features it adds that I’d like us to support in Grazr. The one that opens the most possibilites is the idea of using OPML within an RSS feed. This means that you can now create a series of posts that are each outlines. Dave uses the example of podcast show notes, but there are lots of other applications as well. You could use it to deliver an ongoing series of transcripts of conversations, or to present a continuing set of data about a rapidly changing event, such as a hostage drama, or a natural disaster. There was just a small quake in the Bay area. Right now the USGS delivers continuous updates on earthquakes through a feed. What if instead of just a link or a few data points in the body of each item, they could deliver an outline with a complete sequence of siesmic data within each feed item? This presents all types of applications for delivery of scientific data within feeds that requires time series data to describe each event.
The other useful addition to the spec is more details on the category attribute. This allows for better integration of tags into OPML nodes. I can also see how this could be applied to a social graph, by allowing you to describe a hierarchy of relationships. I first got interested in OPML as a way of annotating data about feeds. It was a useful way of adding meta data. The category attribute is a good enhancement to that use case.
In general I think that we’ll be able to incorporate all the additions Dave has made, and I can’t see anything that will break our existing widgets, so we’ll have no problem supporting the new spec.
