Today, most of us probably don't consider ourselves to be users of outliners. In fact we are, in the sense that the ubiquitous tree control is the major tool we use to organize folders and files in our operating-system shells, and in most applications. That metaphor sometimes percolates down into the documents we write and edit -- some people, for example, make use of Microsoft Word's outliner -- but I think it's fair to say that structured editing is the exception rather than the rule. Certainly that's true for the application through which the vast majority of our keystrokes flow, namely email.
Given Winer's roots, it's no surprise that outlining is deeply wired into the scripting engine and Web-publishing system at the heart of Radio UserLand. In that environment, developers have always used an outliner to manage the object database, to write code, and to produce content. Last fall at UserLand, the core development team began to use the outliner in another way: to communicate and collaborate. This instant outlining technique, now becoming available to Radio users, blends instant messaging, outlining, and blogging to create a new synthesis that Winer claims (and I hope) is a way out of the email hole we've dug ourselves into.
I'm a big fan of outlining myself but wonder, as Jon does, how widespread outlining can become as a way of communicating.