VeriSign buys weblogs.com for $2.3m

Acquisition of Weblogs service to help stop fake blogs

Domain name registrar VeriSign has acquired the assets of Weblogs.com for $2.3m in cash. 

Weblogs.com was set up by blog and RSS pioneer Dave Winer, and operates a so-called 'ping server' which allows blog operators to send out a notification that their site has been updated. 

Search engines and news aggregators can use this information to update their databases.

The alternative would be to periodically scan each site, which could result in a time lapse of several days between the posting and the inclusion in the search engine database.

Weblogs.com's ping server receives up to two million pings a day. Winer is selling the service because he cannot keep pace with the rate at which it is growing.

"There's reason to believe that [VeriSign] can and will do a much better job of running the ping centre than I have been able to, and this is the perfect example of individual innovators (myself in this case) working with large companies in ways that leverage the strength of both," Winer explained. 

"I'm good at digging holes. I have to pass off to others to make the trains run on time when the service grows as big as weblogs.com."

VeriSign is best known for running the internet domain system and name servers for the .com, .net and .org domains. The company makes sure that a visitor who types in vnunet.com, for example, gets routed to the appropriate server. At peak loads, the system handles 250,000 requests a second.

"In comparison, Weglogs.com's one to two million pings a day seems a drop in the bucket," said Weiner.

VeriSign plans to further expand Weblogs.com into services that monitor the infrastructure of the blogosphere, according to Michael Graves, techno-evangelist at VeriSign. 

The firm will also try to better filter the real blogs from spam blogs, or 'splogs', sites created by computers in an effort to influence search engines or lead users to commercial websites.

The number of splogs is currently growing at a faster rate than regular blogs, according to Graves.

"This problem is fraught with many of the same problems that plague the email world in its struggle against spam," he said.

"We believe that many will want to take advantage of filtering services in much the same way that mail users see value in spam filters for their email inbox."

The acquisition concludes a week in which blogs made a major push into the world of traditional publishing. On Tuesday VNU, the parent company of vnunet.com, unveiled a partnership with Gawker Media for the creation of European affiliates of the Gizmodo gadget blog. 

In addition, America Online revealed on Thursday that it had purchased Weblogs Inc, a company that publishes 85 topical blogs.