] 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)

] 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 -

]
] 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

] NEW YORK - Google, the operator of the Web's leading
] search engine, has bought Pyra Labs, the creator of
] software for publishing Weblogs, a form of hyperlinked
] online journal that has become an increasingly popular
] way to distribute and collect information on the Web.
] Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the move was
] hailed by users of Weblogs, commonly called blogs, as a
] watershed moment for the fledgling communications medium,
] sometimes dismissed as too narrowband and self-involved
] to have a significant cultural impact.
] 'People will start taking it seriously,' said Mr Matthew
] Haughey, creator of Metafilter, a widely-read Weblog, and
] a former employee of Pyra. 'If it's linked to off Google,
] you're not going to have to explain what a Weblog is to
] people anymore.'

Google deal ties company to Weblogs - FEB 18, 2003

] Dave Weinstein, Gizmodo's Special Correspondent for the
] Consumer Electronics Show, contributes an excellent
] report about the best gadgets he saw there:
]
] LAS VEGAS -- As each year ends there's a small section of
] our populace that starts to get really excited about
] upcoming events. Is it the coming of the new year that's
] got them smiling like school children on the way to a
] candy store, or is it the upcoming Consumer Electronics
] Show (CES) that's held at the beginning of each January?
] CES usually heralds the arrival of new home entertainment
] gear, but in recent years, this has expanded to all sorts
] of home and portable technology products, including flat
] panel televisions, wireless networking, personal video
] recorders (PVR), home theater PCs (HTPC), and a plethora
] of handheld devices. This year's CES didn't disappoint,
] in addition to a huge amount of new breakthrough
] products, there were glimpses of the components that will
] be showing up as part of next years gadgets as well.
] Here's a few of the interesting product and technology
] areas that were shown this year.

Gizmodo : CES Field Report

] NEW YORK (Reuters) - Internet search company Google Inc.
] has agreed to acquire Pyra Labs, the handful of Web
] developers who helped jump-start the personal publishing
] phenomenon known as blogging, Pyra's founder said on
] Sunday.
] 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.
] 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.

Google Buys Blogger

] Google has bought Blogger. Forget those peace protests
] around the world on Saturday: there is nothing more
] interesting to the weblog community than the weblog
] community, and this was the news of the weekend.
] What, you might ask, has happened? Put simply, the
] world's favourite search engine has bought one of the
] companies that pioneered the online diary, or weblog.
] Google now owns a service that makes it easy to publish a
] weblog, as well as an archive that holds the text from
] more than one million weblogs, 200,000 of which are
] active today.
] Naturally, the story was broken via breathless weblog
] postings. Dan Gillmor of the San Jose Mercury News had
] learnt of the story and produced a special edition of his
] column to break it. Evan Williams, the chief executive of
] Pyra (the company that gave birth to Blogger) read
] Gillmor's story, which was published unexpectedly early,
] and announced the takeover at a US blogging event on
] Saturday afternoon.

Guardian Unlimited | Online | Google gets Blogger and better

] Weblogs are one of the few things online still capable of
] generating media buzz and bucks. The libertarian blogger
] Glenn Reynolds turned himself into a marketable political
] pundit via his hugely popular blog (instapundit.com) and
] now appears on the news cable channel MSNBC. United
] States-based right-wing British blogger Andrew Sullivan
] (andrewsullivan.com) recently netted about $US79,000
] ($133,000) in donations from his readers during a "pledge
] week" in which he appealed for funds to keep his site
] running.
] Given Sullivan's success, there are signs that the
] business world beyond AOL is beginning to take a serious
] interest in weblogs.
] A growing number of entrepreneurs, media types and
] marketers have taken up blogging, in all senses of the
] word. And as they crank out their own daily contributions
] and links, they are starting to see it as a way to reach
] out and research opinion formers, as a lesson in online
] media and as a place they might eventually make a little
] money.
] Leading the charge is New York-based Briton Nick Denton
] (nickdenton.org), whose previous credits include the
] dotcom networking event First Tuesday and the online news
] aggregator Moreover.

Blogging for dollars - theage.com.au

] Web search powerhouse Google has jumped headfirst into
] the popular web logging (blogging) phenomena, inking a
] deal to acquire Silicon Valley software firm Pyra Labs.
] Financial terms of the deal, believed to be an all-cash
] transaction, were not released.
] Google officials could not be reached to comment on the
] deal, which includes the Blogger "push-button" Web
] publishing platform used by hundreds of thousands of
] users to update online journals, or blogs (define).
] Blogger boasts just over 1 million registered users but
] only about 200,000 users publish active weblogs. Blogger
] runs a free service alongside a $35 per year Blogger Pro
] option that offers advanced features for commercial
] bloggers.
] Pyra Labs, formed in January 1999, was launched with
] start-up funding from O'Reilly & Associates, Advance
] Publications (parent to Condi Nast), Jerry Michalski, and
] The Accelerator Group.

Google Acquires Blog Software Firm