Yahoo Buys Networking Site For Blog Junkies

Yahoo Tuesday confirmed rumors that it has acquired MyBlogLog, a fast-growing social networking site that lets blog readers connect with each other.

The move is the latest in a series of purchases Yahoo has made over the last 18 months to expand its social media offerings. "MyBlogLog follows in a line of key acquisitions that includes Flickr and other leading social media sites like del.icio.us and Upcoming," wrote Chad Dickerson, senior director of the Yahoo Developer Network, in a post on the Yahoo's Yodel Anecdotal company blog. "Taken together, these vibrant Web communities continue to provide Yahoo with a deeper understanding of communities and user activity that reach beyond the Yahoo network."

Since launching its service in July, MyBlogLog has quickly given rise to thousands of communities around prominent blogs including TechCrunch, GigaOm and Marketing Pilgrim. The site allows blog readers to chat and create profiles including personal information and their photos. To date, MyBlogLog has drawn 25,000 blog readers and 38,000 bloggers while receiving 10 million to 12 million daily page views, according to Yahoo.

In addition to community-building features, the site also offers blog publishers insight into activity on their blogs, such as what pages are the most visited or what links are most popular. Bloggers can opt to share some of the analytic data with readers.

In his post, Dickerson said that Yahoo doesn't plan to make any immediate changes to MyBlogLog, and will maintain it as a separate brand. Yahoo declined to discuss how it plans to monetize the site, but reiterated that the acquisition complements its social media and community strategy. During the last year, Yahoo has come under criticism for lacking a social site to compete with upstarts like MySpace and Facebook. After its attempts to acquire Facebook stalled last year, Yahoo has continued to target smaller social networking sites such as MyBlogLog.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it was reported to be worth about $10 million by Forbes.com.

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