Inspired by my examination of Digg’s business model earlier this week, I’ve moved the spot to MyBlogLog, which has been getting an awful lot of attention (see this ZDNet mini-review) ever since reports Yahoo was going to acquire it for $10-million. I’ve been using MyBlogLog for a long time as a tool to track what posts people are reading and what sites they are coming from, as well as a cool widget that tells you how many times a particular link in a post has been clicked on.
Mostly recently, MyBlogLog has been attracting users with a social networking tool that lets you add other MyBlogLog users to your community. There’s also a widget that tells you the other MyBlogLog users (including their photos) who have visited your site.
So, how does MyBlogLog make money? From what I can tell, it’s mostly from a premium service ($3 a month or $25 a year) that lets you see your statistics in real-time. This compares with the free service that lets you check statistics from the previous week. I suspect MyBlogLog’s push into the community/social networking markets has two angles: it attracts new users, which makes the company more attractive to potential advertisers and/or suitors; as well as creating a larger audience for the premium statistics services.
If you believe where there’s smoke, there’s fire, Yahoo’s apparent interest in MyBlogLog suggests the company could be the next Web 2.0 start-up to be snapped up.