Google Buys Blogger
Published February 17, 2003
Google has agreed to acquire Pyra Labs, developer of Blogger software and Blogspot, home to a million bloggers:
- Word of the deal spread after Pyra Labs Chief Executive Evan Williams confirmed on his personal Weblog that his team of six developers would join Google.
In typical blog fashion, the news spread first on Saturday from San Jose Mercury technology columnist Dan Gillmor's eJournal diary to other blog sites. Then in a statement on Monday, Google spokesman David Krane said his company had recently acquired Pyra Labs.
Weblogs, or "blogs" for short, are a form of grass-roots online diary publishing that give ordinary people with limited technical knowledge the ability to update personal Web sites. A blog consists of short, frequently updated postings that are arranged chronologically, highlighting the latest material.
For Google, which has become a household name for searching the Web, the move marks the privately held company's latest push beyond search and into publishing. Last fall, it launched Google News. Two years ago Google acquired Deja.com's Usenet, a massive archive of Web-based discussion groups.
"Blogs are a global self-publishing phenomenon that connect Internet users with dynamic, diverse points of view while also enabling comment and participation," the Google spokesman said. "Blogger users can expect to see no immediate changes to the service," said Krane, who added that Google will disclose additional details of its Blogger plans in upcoming weeks. [Reuters]
- Google Buys Blogger
- Published: February 17, 2003
- Type:
- Section: Sci/Tech
- Filed Under: Sci/Tech: Internet
- Writer: Eric Olsen
- Eric Olsen's BC Writer page
- Eric Olsen's personal site
- Spread the Word
- Like this article?
- Email this
Save to del.icio.us
Comments on this articleComments
My heart skipped a beat. First happily: maybe maybe now we'll get some service, I mean real service. Oh, the list of my complaints is as long as the list of my continuously unanswered questions.
But then fear, a much more frequent visitor, knocked on my open window: Will they charge for every something whatsoever?
All said while I am a paying blogger over there. Sadly.
So please let's see some changes, or at least improvements, in our generation, pray!
I do think that there will be improvements both in reliability and features now that they will have the needed resources and that a free version of blogger will remain available.
One of the biggest problems with the boom was a lot of bad ideas got funded and money was spent poorly (remember superbowl ads for dotcoms?), so it has been hard to get funding for good ideas since then.
When I first interviewed Ev back in the fall of 2000 for a review of blogger for Wired, he had lots of ideas but didn't have the resources to implement them which they will have now.
Add your comment, speak your mind
(Or ping: http://blogcritics.org/mt/tb/3247)
I am fascinated with this story and the effects it will ultimately have. I've been trying to follow it, and I never think to much about the blogger company but there is one site I am a part of where I do have to use Blogger and it's true... I'd never buy a cell phone from Rogers and I would never put my blog on blogger...
...but honestly blogging as an overall phenom is just flabbergasting to me.... that live from the blogosphere thing sounded really neat.