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OPML for Twitter lists

Tuesday, November 03, 2009 by Dave Winer.

A new feature of listbrowser.org. 

When you're displaying a list, you'll see a white-on-orange XML icon at the bottom of the page, right next to the (also new) Refresh icon. Click the XML icon and you'll get an OPML rendering of the list. You should then be able to import that OPML into Google Reader or some other feed aggregator just like any other OPML file. What that means? Like everything related to Twitter lists, it's too early to tell. But one thing is for sure, you can now use Twitter to author OPML. That in itself is pretty new idea. (It's totally new.) 

Here's a screen shot showing where the XML button is on my innovators list. This is the OPML version of that page. 

BTW, one of the reasons the OPML Editor is called the OPML Editor is that you can enter that address in the Open URL dialog in the File menu and it'll open in the editor. This is a convenient way to create mashups of Twitter lists. At this point I haven't got a way to get OPML into Twitter, but you gotta figure that's coming.  

I've got some more kickass features in the pipe. This is very very fertile ground.  

PS: The Refresh button tells listbrowser.org to get the list from Twitter, instead of using the copy it has cached. Normally it'll reload on its own after an hour, but if you just made a change to a list and want listbrowser to reflect that, just hit the Refresh button when viewing the list.