Janet Lee Johnson | The Art of Marketing

Wherever I go!

I’ve often wished I could use my “Janet, we have book recommendations for you here…” information from Amazon elsewhere online. Apparently, (with thanks to the heads up from the folks over at Marketing Conversation) now I can.

There’s a concept now called APML which is basically a standard set of programming language that allows smart programmers to capture what you pay attention to online - beyond your RSS feeds (AKA your subscriptions) - which is captured by OPML. According to Abraham Harrison:

“It doesn’t care too much about your subscriptions… but it does care about how you interact with the blogosphere implicitly. It is a little like OPML + eHarmony.”

I love that descriptor - imagine the possibilities!

John Tropea over at Library Clips described these scenarios (among others) where you could share your APML files with other trusted friends:

“…when I plug my APML into a webpage, it will recommend me stuff based on my past attention, plus also recommend stuff based on my friends (circle of trust) attention.”

“I also like the idea of AutoRoll…people who visited your Facebook profile also visited these profiles.”

I think there are plenty of great uses for APML, as long as it doesn’t isolate me from different opinions.

Hanging out in the digital world is no different from hanging out in the solid world. Surround yourself with interesting people and you’ll have a much richer world as a result.

I was happy (and not surprised at all) to see that my buddies from Attensa are already all over APML - which is apparently how they track my attention in their AttentionStream “River of News” feeds.

(I do hang out with such interesting people, lucky me!)

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