More than four years ago, Google bought Pyra Labs (aka Blogger.com), and since that time Google has done a darn job of pretty much ignoring Blogger while Wordpress and TypePad have become fast-growing blog platforms.
So, it’s interesting to see Google move aggressively into the micro-blogging market with the acquisition today of Jaiku, which competes against Twitter and Pownce. I assume the move it part of Google’s ambitious wireless plans, which apparently include the much-anticipated GPhone.
Mashable makes an excellent point that Twitter, on paper, would have been a better fit than Jaiku because it was co-started by Blogger founder Evan Williams. Maybe it came down to price given Twitter has some heavy-hitting investors – Charles River Ventures and Union Square Ventures as well as high-profile angels such as Marc Andreessen, Dick Costolo, Ron Conway, and Naval Ravikant. And as VentureBeat points out, Jaiku has been closing the gap in traffic with Twitter recently.
Of course, it may just be that Jaiku has better technology than Twitter or smart people or perhaps that owning Jaiku now gives Larry and Sergey a reason to use their 747 to fly to Finland where Jaiku is based.
Given the interest in micro-blogging, perhaps it’s time for Matt Mullenweg and the crew at Automattic to extend the Wordpress platform into the game. At the very least, it seems all the rage with investors.
Blognation (Canada) has an extensive post on the deal and what it means to Twitter and Pownce.
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[...] Mark Evans has a few more details on his blog calling it the Blogger-lite acquisition: More than four years ago, Google bought Pyra Labs (aka Blogger.com), and since that time Google has done a darn job of pretty much ignoring Blogger while Wordpress and TypePad have become fast-growing blog platforms. [...]