More on that Blogger deal

The weblog world is abuzz with speculation and comment on Google's deal to buy Blogger, and my own analysis is up on Guardian Unlimited today. Elsewhere, there are (at the time of writing, according to Blogdex) no fewer than 243 links to Dan Gillmor's piece which broke the story on Saturday night, which makes this story easily the most linked-to in the Blogosphere.

New biz on the blog

As business begins to cash in on weblogs, Jim McClellan reports on those creating bucks and buzz from the online craze

Weblogs: ‘The Guardian has gone pro-war’

Over at weblog watcher Blogdex, at number 25 in their list 'o' popular links at the time of writing, is the fairly remarkable claim that "the Guardian has gone pro-war". Blimey. Judging by the Blogdex timings, the assertion seems to have been made first by armchair general (or "warblogger") Glenn Reynolds, who linked to this leader from... er... yesterday's Observer (the clue is in the URL). He did qualify the statement with a "well, strictly speaking it's the Guardian/Observer, but still. . .". So doubtless he'll be claiming today's Guardian leader is a remarkable u-turn, and the other me-too weblogs will trot along behind once more. If nothing else, it serves to highlight the mindless re-serving of opinion and links (with nothing added while reheating) that passes for a large chunk of blogdom. Why do they bother?

Pyra still moving in internet time

Pyra is the parent company of Blogger.com, the easy to use web content management tool that makes Onlineblog.com, and thousands of other blogs, work. I met Evan Williams, chief executive of Pyra, back in January, and wrote about how he was a one-man band, holding together this wildly popular service with lots of late-night coding sessions, and little else. Eight months down the line from our meeting, and his world has changed radically. Having created a revenue stream - Blogger Pro - he's taken on four staff, is about to recrute another, and things are moving fast, as he explains in this post to one of his own blogs. It's a transformation worthy of the internet boom but, having spoken to Ev, and knowing Pyra's rocky history, I suspect the business plan is far more solid than many dot.coms of that era.

So we’re blogging live from

So we're blogging live from the floor of Extreme Computing 2002 in the Camden Centre, London. It's packed to capacity, and there's a myriad of bizarre stalls showing off - and selling - everything from tea towels with Google searches printed on the front to amazingly ambitious public database schemes. On stage, George and Freeman Dyson, and Tom Standage, have just blown us away with a discussion that rampaged from biotech to (nuclear powered) space flight, and now the lightning presentations have kicked off... and someone's doing an origami demonstration. Things go downhill shortly when I join Tom and Ben on stage to defend blogging against charges of being "fashionable".

Blogger Pro has launched. This

Blogger Pro has launched. This is the long-awaited fee-based upgrade for Blogger, the web tool which makes this weblog tick. We'll be upgrading Onlineblog: it's only $35 (about £25) for a year, and Blogger was good enough to pay for even without the various enhancements available now, or being planned. Much more about Blogger in next week's Online.