Yahoo Buys Ping Collection

Jim Winstead sold Blo.gs to Yahoo.

Yahoo isn't disclosing the amount and Winstead's one of those people who becomes taciturn about the width of his wallet, so we may have to wait for an SEC filing to find out the purchase price. I would be disappointed if Winstead didn't make the $50.9 billion company drive a money truck to his house.

Disclosure: I tried to purchase Blo.gs when Winstead's initial for-sale notice made it sound as if he'd part with it for a check containing three or four zeroes.

Self-interest prevented me from telling Jim, but I thought Blo.gs had blindingly obvious and considerable value in weblogging. For several nights I fell asleep to dreams of swimming in a vast sea of coins a la Uncle Scrooge. As I told my wife, our house has plenty of room out front for a money truck.

I soured on the negotiation when another party secured a right of first refusal, figuring the chance for a bargain was gone.

Weblog notification services such as Blo.gs tie the entire blogosphere together, and commercial sites like Technorati, Feedster, and Blogpulse are utterly dependent on them.

Yahoo clearly recognizes this, as company engineer Jeremy Zawodny describes on his weblog.

With this sale, I'm pondering the most attractive remaining acquisition targets in weblogging. Weblogs.Com is clearly the biggest, followed in less certain order by UserLand Software, del.icio.us, Haloscan, and the commercial side of WordPress.

2005/06/15 · 0 COMMENTS · Link