Using OPML to organize information for use

Recently, Ken Smith shared an example of a directory of activities to do during a wedding weekend (primarily for attendees not familiar with the area). I recently started a OPML directory of sorts on Oregon elections. Using the drummer.this.how feature from Dave Winer, these directories can be easily reviewed by others. I also recently created a Github repo to collect thoughts on organizing information for use, but it is not in OPML format (although it could be…)

In the early days of OPML, some people were trying to organize podcast directories using OPML files. The idea was that someone could be the maintainer of a directory on a topic, and that file could be included as a folder/directory within a larger directory structure. After playing with the new includes feature in opmlPackage, I started thinking about this again. My impression is that many people who post lists of things do so with the idea of sharing, but the reuse of that sharing is difficult. However, if the list was in an OPML file, this would lend itself to reuse/sharing/remixing. If you had a group of experts who could summarize/curate information/resources for a set of topics in OPML, this could be the basis of a larger work which could be updated at anytime by any of the experts (see Ken Smith’s “Beyond griping” post for more info). As I mentioned in this post, maybe starting a little “beachhead” for experimentation would be in order. Watch this space for more details!