Netvibes is pretty cool 

I've been checking out a lot of aggregators that import and export OPML. Only trouble with Netvibes and OPML, well two problems, unless I'm doing something wrong or not seeing something obvious:

1) You have to import an OPML file; there really ought to be a provision for pasting in a live OPML URL. I'm coming to believe this is a must-have feature. I think you deny OPML a part of its essential nature when you make it sit there with no place to change or grow. I'm on a kick about this, and I think I'm going to make quite a pitch about it in the ebook I'm working on.

2) The subscription list import doesn't detect dupes. I wasn't sure I had imported my file, so I did it again. Now I have two of everything in this huge list of feeds. If I want to weed it out I will have to go through and delete each duplicate individually. I doubt I'll want to take the trouble.

I guess what they call "modules" are widgets? I suppose they only work on the Netvibes page... They look pretty easy to make. Someone who offers an online OPML editor ought to make a module, maybe a specialized one positioned as a better kind of sharable to-do list? Or how about an OPML renderer as a widget? Perfect for Grazr, maybe?

It really is the nicest my page sort of my page I think I've ever seen. With stuff like Writely and Box.net built into it, it's almost a Web 2.0 application aggregator. I wonder if I will be able to get to it from behind the firewall at work.

Can't trade an oligarchy for an obligarchy 

I haven't read all the reactions to Nick Carr's fairy tale about the A-list but I have followed quite a bit of it. One comment from Seth Finkelstein struck a chord with me because I read it wrong. Sorry, I can't recall now on whose blog he posted it, but he mentioned an oligarchy. I saw "obligarchy," not a word as far as I know, but it made me think, yeah, I guess that's what I think about it: that there is an inner circle -- A-listers who deny they have power are being disingenuous. At the same time, I don't believe they are obliged to fix anything.

If there's one thing the rebel in me hates, it's when somebody says or implies that I have to do anything. We little guys (my blog is in Technorati's mid-5 figures) can keep doing what we're doing: suggesting that the big guys consider more diverse sources, and hammering away at unlocking Techmeme and other reinforcers of the narrowcast. We have the power to be persistent about it, and eventually I'll bet some of the fairminded A-listers will start to see benefits for everybody in supporting a web with a wider range of views. But it's not for anybody to make demands.

Withholding judgement 

I don't use a mobile device to read news, so I suppose I don't really have the standing to say, but I'm not seeing the revolution in Dave's new mobile river. Reading about it did remind me I've tabled work on a mobile version of a weekly newsletter for work. I'd been thinking it should have separate story pages with the main page as an index with headlines, but maybe I'll try the river approach as an option, since, as I said I don't have user status. I'll be sure to test them on people in a position to judge. Either way it will be a piece of cake with Expression Engine. I'm just making a separate template to display the same content we send as HTML e-mail and output in different ways on the website.