Archival RSS: Toward Weblog Portability

["Phil Wolff" <philw@yahoo.com>]

One RSS file for each html page. An OPML file listing all the RSS 
files in their hierarchy. Another OPML file listing all local content 
assets (pictures, binaries, sounds, etc.). Written out to the web 
server. 

Doc Searls points to Tiernan Ray of eCommerce Times in Wireless 
Newsfactor: Why Blogs Haven't Stormed the Business World [1]. Ray 
says portability between blogging tools is a hangup. I agree. 

One solution: 

Archival RSS. 

Convention says you publish an RSS file per home page. Symbolic 
of "what's new". 

We need RSS files for every archival page. If you write archives by 
the day, week, month or year, one for each. If you write archives by 
category or topic, one for each. Where there's an html page, there 
should be an RSS file. 

One other piece: A master list, perhaps in OPML, of the RSS files. 

This makes structure explicit so content can be discovered, imported, 
and flowed through new templates. The cost, negligible. 

Data portability is a huge deal in enterprise apps. The worlds of 
ERP, CRM, databases, email, and file service all met this threshold 
many years' ago. Weblog engineers should step up now. 

Am I correctly defining the problem from a business perspective? Is 
it worthy of attention? Are there better solutions? Alternative 
strategies? Is this stretching RSS too far into a new use? What am I 
missing?  

[1] http://www.wirelessnewsfactor.com/perl/story/21389.html