OPML is the sizzling Aniston vs. Jolie drama in the tech sector today.

It started brewing yesterday when Dave Winer added TechCrunch OPML structure to the side of scripting.com and remarked how great an example it was of real world OPML usage:

This is, in so many ways, the kind of collaboration I envisioned when I released the OPML Editor. Mike, a lawyer who loves technology, is exactly the kind of person I want to empower with OPML.

I saw this and thought, hey, now that is a pretty cool use of OPML. I wasn’t as smitten by using OPML for podcast show notes, which is another use that was lauded by some as being a great idea, but I could see doing something like this in OPML at Hmm for certain type posts (like the detailed reviews).

This OPML example caused Winer’s friend, Robert Scoble, to challenge developers to create a blog system to replace the one he was using (also Dave’s creation, I believe) and provide him the ability to have the same OPML categorization functionality as TechCrunch.

Next, James Robertson blogged that the OPML spec was “really, really crappy” and gave him “massive headaches implementing” because “somebody has to say it.” And then Robertson proceeded to lay out, in detail, from a developer perspective why he felt the OPML spec is lacking:

I had to add tons of hacks to the OPML support in order to support the export formats of various tools. The problem? Everyone implemented it a little differently, because the spec is incredibly unspecific - about just about everything.

This put Scoble on the defensive and he reposted, trying to reaffirm how he was a user, not a developer, and lays out some reasons why he’d like these OPML features:, adding this solliloquy:

I am a user. I’ll leave those discussions to the developers. But, as a user, I don’t really give a flying leap. I see the feature I want. I see that someone has done it by hand to get what they want. I want even more. Are you gonna give it to me? Fine. If not, then can you stay out of the process please?

Predictably following that, Scoble’s mudpit turned moshpit, as a high percentage of Scoble’s readers must be developers, and people started dissecting how Scoble was missing the point.

This morning Scoble posted yet a third time in some 24 hours: More on crappy formats, trying yet again to explain why what his needs as a user superceded spec concerns and “why can’t the developers just get their OPML to work with Dave’s application?” He ends by blasting all his readers with this soliloquy:

The crappy format is good enough until someone comes up with something better. And that’s what you’re all missing.

Ouch. We’re “all missing” it? I’ve read Scoble’s blog for a long time and I sure hope he doesn’t make statements like that any kind of habit.

More importantly though, I remember Scoble saying in the past how much he didn’t want to categorize or tag blog entries because that took too long. So my questions in his comments area — that he skipped by the first time I asked — was straightforward:

If my memory is incorrect, then please at least correct me. If I am correct then please answer how you are going to get anything in OPML format to share — even if somebody does build you this application or provides you the functionality — you are still going to need tag content or categorize content and your blog currently has no category structure, and you’ve said you didn’t have the time to categorize or tag things.

It seems to me that all this fuss Scoble is having over OPML will be for something he won’t actually use because it takes too much time. So, what’s the point? Is it just to try and help cross promote his friend, Winer’s OPML editor? I can get with that, if that’s the deal, but then he should just say that, instead of asking for something he has said in the past have functions that were too time consuming to actually use.

Maybe he has changed his mind on this since seeing what TechCrunch has done and will take the time to start categorizing his blog entries in some new supercharged OPML blogging system?

Like Robertson, my head’s starting to ache too.

Update 12:39pm PST: Scoble responds in his comment area to my question:

I didn’t do that before because I didn’t see a reason to. TechCrunch demonstrated a real reason. Sorry, I’m slow. It took me four years to get into blogging and 1.5 years more to get into RSS and another 3 years to get into OPML.

He also added a little more information about specifically what he looking for: a blogroll list that he can import or export with his own metadata that works in Dave’s OPML Editor. Wordpress has an import OPML function, but not a default export OPML function. That could be a good feature for a mod or a future version. I wonder if Matt and company are already on it?

Did this post make you go hmm?

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