OPML Chapter Six: OPML as “Open Playlist.” A layer of XML grows across the web
Dec 16th, 2006 by jim
The base of the web is made up of millions of URLs. Each URL calls forth resources from web servers. In some of the most interesting cases, these URLs go to MP3, video, podcast, and 3d files. Millions of individuals tend to these gardens, making them as varied and delightful and personal as possible.
Search engines search for these files, catalogue them, and make them available to the rest of us.
But since the early days of the web there has been another way to find resources: Directories. Indeed, before search engines there were directories. Think Yahoo. Many directories have persisted and grown, despite their lack of visibility.
Lately directories have made a comeback. Podcasts, podcast directories, reading lists, Apple iTunes playlists are all directories. Why are directories helpful? Frankly, they can be much more targeted and helpful than search engines, their structure is transparent, and complex sets of results can be ordered and made available in a practical manner. You can with relative ease traverse a directory tree down three or four or more levels. And we are now seeing cool directory-enhancing software like Grazr, which is specifically intended to facilitate “grazing” across levels of deep and rich trees. Trees are coming back.
OPML is the open language of trees. OPML is the Open Playlist Markup Language of the web. OPML is the leading edge of an XML layer that is growing inexorably across the web, on top of and as an alternative to conventional search engines. Indeed, most of the innovation in search now is putting search results into trees–Rollyo–as well as using trees to limit and focus searches. Hybridization of trees and search.
Finally, the rise of “direct navigation” promoted by companies like Name Media is a direct assault on search engines by companies that provide branded directories, such as Photography.com. As these sites have proliferated users have responded, with increasing frequency typing search terms directly into the URL bar, and typically hitting a directory run by one of the direct navigation companies.
The web is changing once again. A new layer is developing. That layer is all about directories as a primary structure for organization access to web resources. It is about separating resource objects from structures. It is about having multiple structures pointing to the same resources. It is about the web as a layer of objects, “described” by outlines. It is about venn diagrams as the new way to think about the web. Venn diagrams that surround sets of resources. Venn diagrams that overlap each other. Venn diagrams that themselves can be searched and sorted and made sense of. And most important, Venn diagrams that are the results of user creativity, collective user creativity, of millions of people.
At the top of this post I highlight the Open Irish Directory, a famous and important set of sets written by James Corbett. Enjoy!