OK. Everyone else is talking about it, so I shall too, but in the truly uninformed manner you have come to expect from grayblog.
Yes, I’m talking about the purchase of Pyra, the company behind Blogger, by none other than Google. Darren has put together a list of relevant links here and here and Giles Turnbill writes about it for the Beeb here. SiliconValley.com broke the story (among others) here.
My view on it? Well, Blogger isn’t the only weblog making tool around, and MT and GreyMatter, amongst others, have substantial numbers of users. So is Google going to get a total handle on weblogging du jour by tapping into that traffic? If they really wanted to do that, wouldn’t they buy into a blog aggregator or even set up their own? No, I think Google must have something else up their sleeve, but I’m at a loss to think what it is. Certainly there could be advantages in incorporating data skimmed from weblogs into the Google system, but I’m at a loss as to how this could be done effectively, or even if such data is desirable, when it is so very unfiltered.
Perhaps they see blogging as a money making opportunity, and buying the most established service provider (which neatly comes with blogspot.com included) is a fast track way to get into that market. Blogging continues to grow at an awesome rate, and contrary to doom-laden talk from certain quarters that crops up from time to time, shows no sign of being replaced by anything or running out of steam. Rather, it tends to gradually develop new forms (not mutate, as the old forms persist) that run along and become developed further.
It should be a help to Blogger users, at least it will be if Google invest in server capacity and free the Pyra team from keeping the system afloat to allow them to develop new, better and more robust systems and features. What impact it will have on the charging structure for BloggerPro is anyone’s guess. I’m not so sure that Blogger, in its current forms, is likely to be adopted as a mainstream product for professional and business content management. I think that will most likely be catered for by bespoke systems and the likes of Atomz Publish.
The last question must be – does it really matter? Probably not, is the honest answer. In a period of days which have seen some of the biggest anti-war rallies in history, the death of over 100 people on the Korean subway and Brighton and Hove Albion win away from home, it really isn’t likely to change much. But it does give bloggers something to talk about.