Google buys Blogger web service

Google, the world's most-used internet search engine, yesterday announced the acquisition of Blogger, a web service which has fuelled the rapid rise of the web journals popularly known as weblogs.

Pyra Labs, the company behind Blogger, was sold to Google for an undisclosed sum on Saturday after four months of negotiations.

Weblogs, once the preserve of a technologically savvy elite, have gained popularity since the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001. The websites, which mostly serve niche audiences, typically contain frequently updated opinion and links to material around the internet. Blogger is behind more than 1m weblogs, 200,000 of which are active.

The sale is being seen by many in the online community as a sign weblogs have become a mainstream medium. Evan Williams, Pyra's chief executive, said last night he was very happy about the deal which has transferred him and Blogger's six staff to Google.

He said: "There is not a great deal I can talk about at the moment.We are all still trying to figure it out." Earlier, on his Evhead.com weblog, he described the purchase as "an awesome opportunity".

The sale is a dramatic turnaround for San Francisco-based Blogger, which rode the high and subsequent low of the dotcom boom. The company was founded in 1999, and Mr Williams had to lay off the company's entire staff in late 2000. He continued to maintain the service by himself from his home until last year, when he increased revenues by starting a premium version.