] My knee-jerk reaction was to find out who broke the
] story, how it spread, what the blogs were saying, how the
] mainstream press reacted. And this was indeed an
] interesting story within the story; one that's already
] been told so many times it feels like ancient history
] already (thanks to bloggers). The San Jose Mercury News'
] Dan Gillmor broke the story on his weblog while Pyra
] co-founder Evan Williams was on a panel at "Live from the
] Blogoshere," who then updated his weblog and projected it
] to the audience. Another blogger on the panel, Tony
] Pierce, later complained that the Los Angeles Times
] reporter in the house didn't even write up the buyout
] story. (Pierce does a much better job than I could
] tracing the breaking story online.)

OJR article: Google Blogger = Mainstream Weblog Acceptance?

] So, yeah, everybody's gonna be buzzing about Google
] buying Pyra, but my take is that it's not really that
] great a fit.]
] Of course, Google bought Deja, which is the closest
] parallel as far as their acquisitions go. But Deja
] archived everything in Usenet, and Blogger only
] encompasses a part of the blogosphere. Granted, it's
] probably close to half, but relegating the incredibly
] intricate network of LiveJournal users and the
] aggregator-powered Radio users and the thought leaders
] who use Movable Type (including, amusingly, Gillmor
] himself, who broke the story) to second-class citizens
] seems like a critical misstep for Google's path so far.

anil dash - Google Buys Blogger

] So why would Google buy Pyra Labs, developer of the
] widely-used Blogger and Blogspot web self-publishing
] system? Is Google "selling out" to the urge to become a
] portal? Are they morphing into a content provider? Are
] they losing their laser-like focus on search? No, to all
] of the above.]
] This isn't the first time Google has purchased a web
] "community." Google purchased the Deja Usenet newsgroup
] archives in February 2001, and now runs them as "Google
] Groups." The interactive, often self-referential nature
] of many weblogs has many similarities to newsgroup
] postings.]
] Yet Google has said little about the Pyra deal, issuing a
] sparse 77 word statement to the media with few clues
] about the rationale behind the purchase:]
] "Google recently acquired Pyra Labs, developers of
] Blogger -- a self-service weblog publishing tool used by
] more than one million people. We're thrilled about the
] many synergies and future opportunities between our two
] companies. Blogs are a global self-publishing phenomenon
] that connect Internet users with dynamic, diverse points
] of view while also enabling comment and participation. In
] the coming weeks, we will report additional details.
] Blogger users can expect to see no immediate changes to
] the service."

SearchDay - Puzzling Out Google's Blogger Acquisition - 18 February 2003

] "Google buying Blogger validates the importance of
] weblogs to the internet ecosystem. You can't devalue
] people and the things they care about."

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Fame or misfortune beckons for weblogs?

] More evidence that blogging is entering the tech world's
] mainstream: Search engine giant Google has scooped up
] Pyra Labs, a small, privately held San Francisco company
] that makes Blogger, the wildly popular, free blog
] publishing software.

I think the answer to Gillmor's question is obviously "Yes!" In a time of lagging advertising in the media industry and a race to get more subscribers, blogs represent a silver lining in the world of mass communications -- cheap, user-driven content. But what do you think of Google's entrance into the blogging space? Will blogs loose their luster as they go corporate, or will they continue to grow and in some cases, make money? Drop me a note and I will publish selected reader comments in an upcoming Filter.

Blogs Get Google's Embrace (Washington Post)

] As "reality" television's newest couple stood in the
] ballroom, stunned into silence by their newfound wealth
] and, presumably, newfound love, fans were force-fed a
] fairy tale ending nobody really wanted.]
] We were promised a trainwreck, but given a pony ride. And
] so last night's two-hour finale of the smash-hit Joe
] Millionaire quickly degenerated into a shameless exercise
] in viewer manipulation.]
] Going into the finale, Evan Wallace Marriott, the dim,
] husky-voiced star of Joe Millionaire, had whittled his
] pool of 20 shallow women down to two contenders: Zora
] Andrich and Sarah Kozer, both 29, both Sagittarius.]
] But early on, given the cloying narration and selective
] editing, the women were deliberately presented as
] opposites. And, quite suddenly, the rush toward a safe
] Cinderella ending was cast with contrived Hollywood
] precision.]
] Zora, a substitute teacher who also works with the
] elderly, was "modest," "humble," "down-to-earth" and
] "small-town." Sarah was "sophisticated" and "seductive"
] %u2014 a woman as comfortable starring in bondage-fetish
] films as she is working for a mortgage broker.

TheStar.com - Joe gets the girl and the bucks. The end.

] So yes, I sold the company I've poured the last four
] years of my life into. Everything is suddenly different.
] Well, not as sudden as it seems. This has been in the
] works for almost four months. Much of it, in excruciating
] uncertainly. But now I can talk about it! That doesn't
] mean I know much. For example, about the question: What
] happens now?
] I'm going to work at Google, naturally, which is an
] awesome opportunity in itself. To go there with the rest
] of my team (Jason, Jason, Jason, Rudy, and Steve), and to
] continue working on Blogger, but to have access to these
] amazing resources (not just money, and servers, and
] bandwidth, and traffic, and the index, but incredible
] brains) is a dream scenario.

EVHEAD -

] the only guy who had a better day than me yesterday was a
] fella named ev who sold his three and a half year old
] company, Blogger, to Google and got to announce it live
] from the blogoshpere in a packed crowd of hipsters and
] nerds in an overflow event on a sidestreet in Chinatown.
]
] wanna know how cool ev is?
]
] motherfucker's sitting three chairs over from me, theres
] hundreds of people looking at him, but they are slightly
] distracted by another member of the panel who's
] discussing the world of blogging. the attention comes
] back to Ev and he says, "oh, can someone put my blog on
] the screen again please, im sorry."

Google Buys Blogger

]
] Dan Gillmor gets the scoop: %u201CGoogle, which
] runs the Web%u2019s premier search site, has purchased
] Pyra Labs, a San Francisco company that created some of
] the earliest technology for writing weblogs, the
] increasingly popular personal and opinion journals.%u201D
]
]
] The announcement was made at Saturday night%u2019s
] %u201DLive from the Blogosphere%u201D event -a fitting
] name given that the news really did break live from the
] blogosphere (as described by Tony Pierce) with Pyra Labs
] co-founder and (now ex-) CEO, Evan Williams, displaying
] the news in a blog post to a live audience before making
] the announcement himself.

Weblog central - GOOGLE BUYS PYRA

] BLOG TOOL MAKER PYRA LABS has been bought by Google in
] what many bloggers think is a validation of their
] efforts. Pyra has worked hard from the very early days of
] blogging to create programs that allow ordinary people to
] create their own online journals without having to learn
] too much technical stuff.
] Pyra are the company who make and distribute the free
] Blogger program which you can find at www.blogger.com -
] the name gives you some idea of big they are in the
] blogging community. Blogging has taken off in all kinds
] of directions with people creating online journals, fan
] sites, news services and all kinds of other things.

Google puts money into blogging