Weblogs Inc, the blog media company founded by Jason Calacanis and Brian Alvey, is being bought by America Online, paidContent.org has learned from multiple sources. The deal is done and should be announced this week…(Updated: it might be announced tomorrow AM now.) Among the other companies Weblogs Inc talked to included the usual suspects: News Corp, Yahoo and MSN… This is a very quick exit: the company was founded about two years ago, and took some money from Mark Cuban a year down the line. For Calacanis, this is his second company being sold in a space of about two years…his original company Rising Tide Studios was first sold to Wicks Business Information, which in itself was bought out by Dow Jones.The company’s blogs have had an exponential trajectory, with sites like Engadget, Autoblog, BloggingBaby, and others. In total, the company has about 130 bloggers, with about 15 full time employees, from what I know.
AOL intends to keep the company/blogs separate from its site, much in the vein of what is happening with other blog and Web 2.0 companies being bought. But this is perhaps the first pure content-related company being bought out in the blog/ Web 2.0 space…or at least of this scale.
For AOL, this is head first into the blog media revolution, so to speak Calacanis, who was at the We Media conference today where I was, refused comment; I did spot him with an AOL tote bag.
Wow — and to think, I was always afraid of Jason Calacanis copying my blog. Now I have to worry about AOL!
Update: It’s not just a rumor. Darren Rowse has more.
Chuck on October 6th, 2005 at 8:21 am
If AOL copies it, I’m sure it will be dry as dust and as corporate as a legal disclaimer.
home business on October 6th, 2005 at 1:25 pm
This is one of by favoret biz blogs, Good Job
Seun Osewa on October 6th, 2005 at 3:05 pm
I’ve always felt as if the Blogs under the weblogsinc banner don’t have much life, and I’m afraid, if Nick Denton is no longer running the network, it would probably not be the same.
I think they were better off starting their own blog network than taking it OFF the hands of the current owners.