Rumour: Weblogs.com Sold to Verisign for $5M

twadmin on Thu, 2005-10-06 14:08.

12 comments

Source Title:
Report: Winer Sells Weblogs.com To Verisign: Jason Kottke is reporting with a

Source Url:
http://www.paidcontent.org/pc/arch/2005_10_06.shtml#051712

Story Text:

Continuing the saga of Bubble2.0™ comes fresh rumour that Dave Winer has sold Weblogs.com to Verisign for $5M - Weblogs.com was the first "ping service" - fuck knows what Verisign want with it, maybe they just dont want to be left standing with the nerdy kids when all the cool kids are busy flashing their boobs at bloggers?

Comments

Bubble2.0 - most definitely.

claus on Thu, 2005-10-06 14:21.

Bubble2.0 - most definitely. I just wonder if that's an opportunity or not.

"...fuck knows what Verisign

Brad on Thu, 2005-10-06 15:37.

"...fuck knows what Verisign want with it, maybe they just dont want to be left standing with the nerdy kids when all the cool kids are busy flashing their boobs at bloggers?"

Another quote of the year contender. heh heh.

Yeah

andy on Thu, 2005-10-06 15:55.

I especially like "flashing their boobs at bloggers". Quality.

I'll let my blog go for 1

graywolf on Thu, 2005-10-06 16:41.

I'll let my blog go for 1 million

Confirmed by Verisign

twadmin on Fri, 2005-10-07 00:02.

Ok, so it's a long post, that talks about buggerall for the most part, but they

want to keep it free
want to keep the basic system
want to use it to tackle blog spam?

Welcome to the Infrablog: Weblogs 2.0

However, at the infrastructure level, very little is currently being done, and there are remedies that can be deployed that will provide significant, if not thorough relief. As a first “killer app” to deploy on top of weblogs.com ping services, we’d like to make progress in improving the “signal-to-noise ratio” in the blogosphere. Does that mean censorship? No. As above, we’re committed to maintaining the integrity of the free and open ping stream, in all its wild and chaotic glory. But we believe that many will want to take advantage of filtering services – screen out the splogs based on a threshold value in the analysis – in much the same way that mail users see value in spam filters for their email inbox.

That’s a tough task, and one we won’t be able to make much progress on alone. We’re already working with a number of parties in the ecosystem on this subject, and believe that as part of a community effort, VeriSign can help lead the way to much better “signal” at the infrastructure layer of the blogosphere. Which will improve the user experience for everyone. Which is why we got involved in the first place.

It all sounds very nice, but how the hell will analasys at the network level do any better than GOOG/Yahoo et al's algorithms?

I wont say it's bollocks, cos maybe i dont understand it well enough, but i can't see it...

Very interesting move for

claus on Fri, 2005-10-07 00:19.

Very interesting move for Verisign. So the blogs are to be used as some kind of "honeypot" or "field lab".

but how the hell will analasys at the network level do any better than GOOG/Yahoo et al's algorithms?

My own guess is that G/Y only see the secondary effects. The blogs are in the front line, so that's where all the spam comes in - that's the best place to set up filters.

Aem.. CNN reports that AOL bought Weblogs?

Rumbas on Fri, 2005-10-07 00:47.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - America Online Inc. said Thursday it has agreed to buy Weblogs Inc., a network of Internet sites focused on niche topics ranging from food to gadgets.

http://money.cnn.com/2005/10/06/technology/aol_weblogs.reut/

..or did I miss something?

you dont think that would

twadmin on Fri, 2005-10-07 00:54.

you dont think that would have gone unnoticed HERE do you raz?

http://www.threadwatch.org/node/4115

Hehe, of course not Nick

Rumbas on Fri, 2005-10-07 02:18.

Being on the the top 100 blog dawgs, nothing is missed here ;)

I was just wondering though, who bought it then? Verisign or AOL?

AOL This thread is about

twadmin on Fri, 2005-10-07 02:20.

AOL

This thread is about verisign buying weblogs.com not weblogs inc - confusing isnt it? :)

I got confused as well, but

claus on Fri, 2005-10-07 03:59.

I got confused as well, but that com site is basically spammers paradise, as it seems it's just a free-for-all place to blast your messages at. The more I think about it the more obvious it is to run some data mining on that.