A major corner turn today on a service that is a part of the EC2 For Poets project. This is the same server and underlying software that runs my Blork setup.

As a manager of high volume fast flowing data, specifically, information for the No Agenda Podcast, I learned long ago that the best way to manage this is in an outliner.

The connectivity and scriptablility of the OPML editor delivers what I need, and sits firmly above all other products in it's own master category.

I became interested in outlining as an information management and programming (scripting) environment when an earlier incarantion of the OPML editor was producing blogs, feeds and functioning as a personal rss aggregator the UserLand product Radio8.

Of particular grooviness is that the same software I use on my desktop, runs on the server, so I already know how to use and administer it.

On the back-end of the Blork system that the No Agenda producers use to gather stories, leads and infromation that flows through NoAgendaNewsNetwork.com, I have the same information flowing into an outline (screen shot).

I can copy/cut/paste from here and organize as I prepare for the next show. This 'ShowPrep' is automatically made available in html for those who want to follow along with what I'm collecting.

A couple hours before showtime, I arrange everything into relevant categories so I can easily find things while I'm on-air.

After the show, I simply save the cleaned up outline to the server and it automagically turns into ShowNOTES for that episode. (screen shot)

You can also think of an outline as a directory, with nodes containing other nodes.

We had a cool implementation of this back in the early days of podcasting with a directory of podcasts around the world, with 'node managers' who each maintained an outline of shows for their region. They all got linked together on the server to create a dynamic, human powered directory.

So I now maintain one single outline for all the showprep and shownotes, as well as an automatically genertaed list (with links!) of the assets (audio clips etc) used in each episode (screen shot). The server renders this nicely into html for conumption.

My outline starts with a top level of 'Shownotes' --> 2011 --> 06 --> episode numbers.

Under each episode I now am able to display a subdirectory of each story, containing a snyopsis of the link included, as well as a directory of the assets and even a webpage that includes a plyer and the album art.

Best of all, I can map a subdomain name to it for easy reference, i.e 302.nashownotes.com

Oh, and since this entire file is in a structured xml format (opml), it is perfect for parsing and searching, but it can easily be expanded to include other outlines of news and information relevant to the show by other people. I can just 'click' the outline in and it becomes a part of the web directory.

This stuff is so powerful, I feel we're only beginng to scratch the surface of what it can mean for the future of news. Real news.

 5/11/2011; 3:53:00 PM.   .