I’ve been having a lot of fun putting together a large OPML file, and am excited to be able to share it online now through my netvibes universe.

If you aren’t familiar with OPML, a little background might be helpful.  OPML, or “Outlined Processor Markup Language” (wikipedia) is a data format that configures online RSS readers like Google Reader or Netvibes.  These sites allow you to create a portable personalized blogroll of sorts, organizing and categorizing a useful list of websites and RSS/ATOM feeds that you want to pay attention to.

This is useful in the same way as SIM cards can be for mobile phones; instead of spending hours manually typing every phone number into a new device (anyone else ever done that?), you can go to whatever reader you’d like and hit the “import OPML” button, and which lets you upload your RSS settings from another program (from which you have exported the file).

I find this particularly useful for netvibes, especially since they have given users a chance to create public pages (which they call universes) that are separate from your private page.  I’m intrigued by how different the Internet looks like over the shoulder of others, sometimes in a frustrating way (Just open a new tab!  Click on Settings! No, to your right–no, not—yes, now click!), and sometimes in inspiration (Where did you find that?  How are you bookmarking that so fast?).

Screencasts are another helpful way to share online strategies and procedures, replacing tiresome directions that used to read “now point your mouse at ____ button, and click the left mouse button twice”.  OPML and other portable data formats that enable new forms of social interaction are another.

Incidentally, if anyone can make a good case for why google reader is better than netvibes, I’d love to hear it.  I am personally inclined towards Google products, and rely heavily on Gmail and Google Docs, but find Google reader’s layout a step backwards.  Does anyone else share this opinion?