NewsGator Inbox, Attention and APML

As I've written a few times before, Attention is a large part of Inbox 3.0.  The first step was gathering the information, then showing the information.  The last step is the ability for you, the user, to share your attention profile with other services. 

After reading Marjolein Hoekstra post Basics of Attention Profiling through APML - I asked Nick Bradbury what his thoughts were about supporting APML.  This sparked a discussion not only within NewsGator, but also with the APML Workgroup (which NickB is a member of).

As Nick Bradbury puts it :

Long story short: future releases of FeedDemon, NetNewsWire and NewsGator Inbox are all planning to support APML.

The first step will be APML export, which is already underway. Once we've worked out a few details, we'll also support APML import. This means you'll be able to share your attention data not only between our tools, but also with any service that supports APML. Our hope is that by supporting APML, more third parties will be convinced to support it.

In addition, we're working on ideas for supporting APML in NewsGator Online (not just for individual users who want to access their private attention data, but also for the service as a whole – ex: "what's everyone paying attention to?"). The NewsGator Online piece is still in the baby stages so there's nothing solid to announce yet, but we do want to let everyone know that it's in the works.

I wouldn't be writing, both here and in code, about attention so much if I didn't think it was important...  and as Marshall Kirkpatrick from Read/Write Web states - "...many companies are already making huge sums of money off of our attention data. Someday soon we may be able to use it for our own purposes as well."

Related links:
Explaining APML- What it is & Why You Want it
Are You Paying Attention to Google?
AttentionTrust.org
APML.org
RSS: Privacy and Trust
Alex Barnett's 20 Thoughts on Attention
Waiting for Attention…or something like it