Here’s an interesting strategy: Subscribe to a bunch of thematically related public e-mail lists, convert them into a single bundled webfeed, and offer that feed as a simple way for interested people to follow all of those lists at once.
That’s what Progressive Pipes is doing…
This project by Zack Rosen and Neil Drumm aggregates the content of 38 e-mail announcement lists from politically progressive organizations into a single webfeed. (Incidentally, Rosen and Drumm were key technology developers for Howard Dean’s presidential campaign.)
What’s even more handy is that Progressive Pipes sorts list items into a few main categories such as Beat Bush, Human Rights, and Pro-Choice. You can either subscribe to a feed covering all categories (under Latest Messages) or to the category of your choice. I like this approach. Even Dan Gillmor likes it.
Put aside the politics of Progressive Pipes for a moment and consider the concept here.
You could use this strategy to consolidate related announcement lists or even existing webfeeds for any topic, interest, or perspective. For instance, I would love to see a service like this consolidating announcements of major new government , industry, or advocacy group reports on environmental issues. Or upcoming tour dates for all my favorite bands. This would be much easier than following it all by e-mail.
The downside of Progressive Pipes is that it seems to not be updated as frequently as it should. For instance, today is July 19 but the most recent on the Latest Messages feed is dated July 16. I don’t know what’s up with that delay. But ideally, this kind of service should be generated automatically so that there no time-delay penalty for subscribing to the bundled webfeed vs. the original e-mail lists.
(Thanks to Edgewise for this link.)
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