(SOURCE:"arch")-What's next? Microsoft buys UserLand :-) ? I think this means weblogs are going to become mainstream big time. Everybody I know who uses the web (and that's most everybody now a days) knows what Google is; nobody knows was weblogs are! That's about to change! Awesome news for "our blogging venture" methinks! <quote> Weblogs are going Googling. Google, which runs the Web's premier search site, has purchased Pyra Labs, a San Francisco company that created some of the earliest technology for writing weblogs, the increasingly popular personal and opinion journals. The buyout is a huge boost to an enormously diverse genre of online publishing that has begun to change the equations of online news and information. Weblogs are frequently updated, with items appearing in reverse chronological order (the most recent postings appear first). Typically they include links to other pages on the Internet, and the topics range from technology to politics to just about anything you can name. Many weblogs invite feedback through discussion postings, and weblogs often point to other weblogs in an ecosystem of news, opinions and ideas. "I couldn't be more excited about this," said Evan Williams, founder of Pyra, a company that has had its share of struggles. He wouldn't discuss terms of the deal, which he said was signed on Thursday, when we spoke Saturday. But he did say it gives Pyra the "resources to build on the vision I've been working on for years." Part of that vision, shared by other blogging pioneers, has been to help democratize the creation and flow of news in a world where giant companies control so much of what most people see, hear and read. Weblogs are also becoming a valuable communication tool for groups of people, and have begun to infiltrate the corporate, university and government spheres. </quote> [Roland Tanglao: KLogs]

(SOURCE:"boing")-Yes! Google integrated seamlessly with all blogs. This is is what I want!
<quote>
What this means is that once Google actually does integrate Blogger proper into its service, we can expect very rapid and very solid innovation. Gbloogle will be able to sneak features in for a day or two, extract the data, and make some sense of the data, decide whether its worth keeping the feature, and engineer something Google-grade to put on the back-end. But Blogger's success isn't only about what Blogger does. Services like the Weblogs.com list of recently updated weblogs, open protocols like TrackBack, and other technologies developed by rival blogging companies are the reason we have a vibrant, enormous Blogosphere, and not an anemic, partisan Bloggersphere. If Google is able to index every Blogger post (and, one presumes, every message-board post, once the feature is integrated), that's great news for Blogger users, but it won't be as powerful as the other blogmining tools until and unless it can do the same for anyone who publishes something that is self-identified as a "blog." This will be a real challenge. The real challenge. If Google pulls it off successfully, it will be able to generate tons of great, new, brilliant features, use its data-mining to refine them and build secondary services atop them, and that innovation will flow out to the other blogging tools. And vice-versa. Blogger is a success because of the work that Meg and Ev and Steve and Rudy and Jason and the rest did, but it's also a success because it borrowed ideas from other entrepreneurs and inventors, not seeking competitive advantage in locking out interoperability. If the new Gbloogle of a year or two from now is able to treat all blogs as first-class citizens, this is the best news ever for blogdom.
</quote> [Roland Tanglao: KLogs]

Gotta try this!
<quote>
audblog is a service that provides bloggers with the ability to post audio to their blogs from any phone. At the end of the trial sign up we will provide you with the telephone number...all you have to do is call the number and the world hears you. Use it to make a difference...Use it to make your voice be heard.
</quote> [Roland Tanglao: KLogs]