I’m working on a big research report for ReadWriteWeb and decided the other day to start my writing in an outline format, which is unusual for me. I bought a $3 iPhone app that lets me create outlines, so I can work on it when I’m in my backyard or wherever else. I bought it happily because I saw in the description that it supported file export in OPML format, or Outline Processor Markup Language. That way I can send it to myself and edit it using a desktop editor made by an entirely different company. See? Standards enabled me to do work in new ways and gave me reason to spend money on someone’s product.

OPML was originally developed by Dave Winer. As was the OPML Editor I’m using on my desktop to do my work. OPML is most commonly used to export bundles of RSS feeds, blogs or podcasts but it doesn’t have to be limited to “just” those kinds of information. RSS is of course something that Winer was also key in the creation of, as was podcasting (he created the enclosure tag that carries MP3 or other files in feeds) and RSS Aggregators (he wrote one ten years ago). Blogging too. That’s all pretty damn incredible. Now Dave’s working on real-time, microblogging and a new RSS reader called River2.

Why am I writing a blog post about Dave Winer’s work over the years? Just because I was appreciating it again when it was so easy for me to buy that iPhone app for outlining and work with it on my desktop as well. Dave’s a controversial guy, and that’s probably an understatement, but he’s my friend. When I realized that, once again, it was in large part the fruit of his work that I was benefiting from when exporting those outlines – it made me want to make a blog post about it. Thanks for all the work you’ve done over the years, Dave. It’s really made a big difference in my life and work.

Over the last two weeks I’ve interviewed people from 32 different companies working on building, leveraging or otherwise engaging with what’s called The Real-Time Web. It’s preparation for ReadWriteWeb’s forthcoming Real-Time Web Summit (I hope you’ll come) and a research report on the same topic.

Believe it or not, Twitter is not the primary topic of all these conversations (thank goodness) but it does come up a lot both literally and as a metaphor. Many of the conversations aren’t even about social networking, but many of them are. User experience and the streams through which real-time data often gets delivered are things I’ve been talking with people about a lot.

In one of those conversations, Kevin Marks (formerly of Technorati and Google, now at British Telecom) told me the following: he believes that Twitter is more likely to be interesting than television because we opt-in to particular streams of other peoples’ updates that we find interesting. That creates a positive feedback loop that encourages us to contribute something interesting in return and thus the ecosystem trends towards higher quality content. Do you agree with that?

Marks also said this was an advantage that Twitter and other opt-in subscription-stream formats have over things like YouTube comments. What of the “I don’t care what you ate for breakfast” critique of Twitter? Marks says that’s just people who have an antiquated view of what belongs “in public,” based on a time when content had to go through expensive publishing processes before being broadcast to the public and thus had to be unusually important to be worth it.

This is just one of several user experience related conversations I’ve been having about real-time streams, but I found it quite interesting. I like this theory. I’m not sure whether I agree with it or not (Kevin, let me know if I’ve mischaracterized what you meant) but I’d really like to know what others think.

I wrote what I thought was going to be a short post about following a large group of tech analysts on Twitter here, but then decided it was long enough and good enough that I should post it on ReadWriteWeb instead. Check it out.

I’ve been doing a mind numbing number of briefings with companies doing work on the real-time web since we announced the ReadWrite Real-Time Web Summit, Research Report and Month of Special Focus yesterday at RWW. (By the way, check it out.) I found a wonderful service called Tungle.com that syncs with my Google calendar and allows other people to see when I’m busy or free in order to suggest meeting times. My calendar is here and I am SO appreciative of this service! I know there are other competitors out there, like TimeBridge for example but so far Tungle is doing the trick for me. Web apps like this remind me how a good app can solve a problem you hadn’t even realized you had. Check it out, it might rock your world too.

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• TimeBridge wants to make web meetings less frustrating (venturebeat.com)
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I noticed two things about Twitter tonight. First, as part of the new site redesign there’s a new 404 (page not found) error message. It includes a search box – so if you guessed someone’s twitter name and got it wrong, you can search from them right there on that page! Brilliant. Sometimes it’s the little things.

The other thought I just had about Twitter was that it sure is nice when people post personal messages. I know a lot of people complain about mundane “what I’m eating for lunch” posts, but these really are status messages and are sometimes useful as such. I was just pinging my friend Beth Kanter on Skype and after she didn’t respond, I checked out her Twitter profile. (After I got her username wrong again, that is.) There I learned that today is Beth’s 23rd wedding anniversary! Congratulations, Beth and Husband. Thus I know not to expect a response from Beth tonight. Good old Twitter, doing its job as a way to share status messages. Keep those updates about your personal lives coming, Twitter friends!

I’m working on a list of Twitter users working on Real Time Web matters and realized once I hit 30 that I ought to just ask readers and friends for suggestions.

Here’s my list so far all in one place and easy to follow in one fell swoop thanks to the wonderful new service Tweepml. Please add more names of people who should be included in this list below in comments and everyone will thank you for it.