Google Buys Web Publishing Tool Blogger

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Internet search company Google (news - external web site) 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. 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.


No financial terms of the deal were disclosed.


On a humorous note, Williams said one attraction of working for Google at its Mountain View, California headquarters was its gourmet lunch menu (http://www.google.com/jobs/food.html).


Williams called joining Google a "dream scenario," giving him access to what he wrote in his blog was "not just money, but (computer) servers, and bandwidth and traffic and the index, but (also) incredible brains."


Blogger.com (http://www.blogger.com/), the flagship site of Pyra Labs, boasted in January that one million users had registered to use its Blogger software. Blogger offers a free, ad-supported version of its software and a $35 version for commercial publishers.