Philip Miseldine writes on how OPML can help in “providing the glue between our categorising, relational minds:”
OPML lets me produce a list of feeds I regularly read. OPML also lets you produce a list of feeds you regularly read. Now, imagine a few thousand people, all with published OPML formatted feed lists. Within that, there is likely to be some overlap…someone else could be subscribed to a great deal of feeds I’m subscribed to. More importantly, they are subscribed to a few I’ve never heard of. Its reasonable to assume that these new sources of information will interest me. I add them to my OPML list, and someone else now recognises me as a friend (that is, I share their taste) and they glean some new feeds off me. And so the cycle of discovery continues, all using the natural intelligence of those who participate to make the relations.
It would be very feasible to build such a system, a system which could suggest new feeds to me based on my current subscriptions. Dave Winer is currently polling for OPML feeds, which could be used to build a such a system.
