Mercury News | Google buys Pyra in big boost for blogging
The story is finally out and is all over the place. Guess you could call it a defining moment in the next innovation cycle of the internet that has been brewing the last couple of years.
From the first time i heard about it, i’ve thought the deal made total sense. Although only the Pyra and Google folks really knows the exact reasons, everyone is speculating about “why”. My very simple theories compared to some others who are into some very advanced technology reasons:
Links and the bottom-up decentralized net
Blogs has become too important for Google’s core search product for them not to be involved somehow in the area where the real innovation is happening. Bottom up publishing from the people, web services that really are used, rss syndication, etc.
User relationships
One of Google strategic challenges is how to build more stronger user relationships. Today Google has no direct user relationship to the hundreds of millions of users that are using their product each month, although they’re moving in that direction with google identity. They now have 1.1 million early adopter users and a team with experience in creating revenue streams from the relationship.
Team
Google now has a team of people that are on the forefront of this area internally. And the Pyra team becomes a part of the best r&d team at the moment.
PS. Can anyone verify whether this deal is the first true acquisition for Google? The dejanews deal was basically an asset sale of data - not the acquisition of a going operation.
PSS. Any bets on when we’ll see blogs by Sergey Brin, Larry Page and Eric Schmidt?