Ramblings: From Blog Migration to EAI

More and more blog service providers are appearing — MSN Spaces, Google, Wallop, CSDN, TOM… It feels like blogs have become the next gold rush after email.

With so many choices, some of us (me being a typical case) get itchy. Like with free email accounts, I had one from every provider even if I never used them. But blogs are different from email. Email is message-oriented — read and delete. Blogs emphasize accumulation. Each post records the author’s thoughts, mood, opinions at a certain time. String together months or years of posts, and you see a person’s life trajectory.

The problem: with so many choices, you want to move. I started at blogcn, but now I’m eyeing Wallop’s cool features. If I move, all my old posts are lost. No blog service offers migration tools (except the可怜的 RSS feed). Maybe I should write software for this — fill a gap domestically and internationally. Like the BT author, become famous overnight.

Thinking bigger, this connects to EAI (Enterprise Application Integration). Why do enterprises need integration? If everyone used the same solution, there’d be no need. Customers have too many choices, want multiple boats, but won’t give up communication between them. So vendors created EAI, like ERP, SEI, and all those other buzzwords — just another way to take money from customers.

So my blog migration is a form of EAI too. Wonder if BizTalk 2004 could help. I’ll write a program called BlogTalk 2005. EAI starts with me, starts with blogs.