It’s My Birthday – Will You Make Me a Gift?
11 Comments 10.11.09Well folks, I turn 33 years old on Monday but I’m going to have to work so I’m celebrating it today. It’s been a very big year for me: I got married and bought a house! There’s a picture of my new backyard there below. I love our new house! And I love my wife, very much. A lot of other things happened but those are the biggest. It’s been a great year for work as well, I’m learning a lot and having a lot of fun at ReadWriteWeb.
What more could a lucky guy like me want for my birthday? (Less hair loss, dogs that walk themselves, college loans paid off, I could go on!) I’ll tell you what I really need – OPML files! Bundles of RSS feeds I can import into my feed reader. My old Google Reader account is way too filled up with gadget blogs and other things I don’t care about anymore and I haven’t subscribed to anything that isn’t a tech company’s official blog in months. It’s not right. So I’m starting with a fresh new start, using the Mac desktop reader Vienna.
So far the only thing I’ve put into the reader is the OPML file of hundreds of women tech bloggers put together by Anne Zelenka almost three years ago! (Check out that post if you want to see how cutely naive my writing about OPML was just 3 years ago!) That’s my wife with me on the right, not Anne Zelenka.
That’s cool, but I’d love it if for my birthday you, my friends, would send me OPML files of blogs on certain topics. Something cool. I don’t need a file of the top blogs writing about the Semantic Web, I already have that. I don’t need a file of the best blogs on youth marketing, I already have that and am not sure how I feel about it.
This shouldn’t be too hard to do, if you’re unfamiliar. Just put a collection of feeds into a folder in any RSS reader and then export. Open it up in a text editor and cut out all the parts outside of that folder. Then send it to me! Or you could drop RSS feeds in this tool, publish, copy and paste into a text editor and send it to me via marshall@marshallk.com
It would be so awesome if, for my birthday, a few people sent me really awesome OPML files. It’s a curated collection of dynamic sources – a gift that really keeps on giving!
Update: It’s working! People are sending me awesome collections of blogs on things like Activity Streams data standards, web design, crafts and more. Thank you so much!!
Do this for me and I’ll build you a really awesome TweepML group for your birthday when the time comes.
What do you think? Think anyone will actually do it and send me one?? We’ll see! Even if no one does, I still got married and bought a house this year – so no big deal!
I want to make sure you know about NTEN - the Nonprofit Technology Network.
NTEN helps nonprofits learn to use the web effectively.
11 Comments so far
Leave a comment
Happy Birthday, and you are needed at FriendFeed
Comments
7 this week, 1718 all time
Likes
12 this week, 513 all time
??????????????????????????
By ffcode on 10.12.09
um, if I even knew what you were talking about, maybe I could help.
If it were to do with yarn, for example, we’d be in better shape.
Happy Birthday anyway.
By Mandy on 10.12.09
[...] The best idea you can come up with for your birthday wish list is asking your friends for OPML files as gifts. [...]
By You Know You’re A Cool Geek When… | Skeptic Geek on 10.12.09
I must say this is my first visit to this site , and Happy B’day and you have a lovely house.congrats.
By kalyan on 10.13.09
[...] The best idea you can come up with for your birthday wish list is asking your friends for OPML files as gifts. [...]
By You Know You’re A Cool Geek When…. on 10.13.09
Great idea for a bday present, many happy returns!
On Tango:
http://www.google.co.uk/reader/public/subscriptions/user/06469081052911143935/bundle/Tango%20blogs
On music: http://www.google.co.uk/reader/public/subscriptions/user/06469081052911143935/bundle/Music%20Explorings
Or would you prefer the bundles directly?
By Mathieu on 10.13.09
Happy birthday! I’ll get you that OPML file for Canadian bloggers shortly. But one question … why Vienna over NetNewsWire? They seem very similar to me.
By Tris Hussey on 10.13.09
you are a very unique one. OPML files for a gift? But I enjoy reading your post. Happy B Day
By City Sylvester on 10.14.09
Congratulations on all your news, you’ve had a busy year and that garden looks ideal for BBQ’s!
By Tom on 10.27.09
Can you share the OPML files you’ve received??
By Scott Porad on 10.31.09
Will definitely sum up some stuff. It would be awesome if you could post your OPML feeds (and the ones you got from people who sent it to you!)
By Karthick on 11.10.09
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed.