Blogbridge
Dec 9th, 2005 by jimmoore
Blogbridge offers a very cool OPML-aware aggregator.
Now with support for “reading lists” in OPML. What this means is
that you can point the Blogbridge aggregator at a remote source of
OPML, and this outline will be used to put together an aggregator-full
of RSS feeds, which in turn you can read, current.
But here is the cool thing. If the owner of the OPML source
file makes a change, it will automatically be reflected–by the magic
of syndication–in your aggregator.
Until this time the only way to do this has been in Dave Winer’s right-hand-column directory at Scripting.com, or in the built-in reading list aggregator/viewer in OPMLsearch. Here
is the current, up to the minute Techcrunch reading list in the
OPMLsearch aggregator. [oh, wow, Yahoo just bought de.li.cio.us!]
The Blogbridge aggregator is more
capable. Indeed, I think this feature should increase the standing and differentiation of Blogbridge
in the general aggregator space, against the likes of Yahoo and
Bloglines.
Note that the other aggregators still do not allow for
automatic updating of their OPML–they are not able to function as
OPML-driven web services. Blogbridge is. This is important.
Others are CLOSED. The Yahoo aggregator is totally closed to syndicated OPML, as far as we
can figure out. Basically, it only lets you read RSS, not clusters of
RSS. Bloglines makes if difficult to put in new OPML. Cut and paste, everyone?
Blogbridge is OPEN. OPML-syndicating aggregators are OPEN to a world of new sources. This is much more
important than it might seem. This means you can read a
syndicated collection of feeds, and not just
one syndicated feed. The possibilities are endless.
TopTenSources, for example, provides a new set of ten featured
sites each day, delivered from the same OPML source URL. That
means that one of the sections of your Blogbridge aggregator could be
fed from TTS.
Or a URL permalink found at OPMLsearch
could also be made a source for an aggregator at Blogbridge. For
example, there are a number of evolving OPML directories of Podcasts
being created out in the community, that are updated by a diverse,
distributed set of members.
Use the quite wondrous gada.be service to make topical OPML from across the web, and read it in your aggregator.
Finally, you can use the code at OPML monitor
to create dogpile-type meta searches that export OPML, and use these to
run searches each morning, for example on MSN and Yahoo and Google news.