As was reported widely,
and we announced on the Blogger home page last week, Pyra Labs, the company behind Blogger, was recently acquired
by Google. Understandably, we've been getting a lot of questions about what
this means for Blogger and Blogger users. Below, we've put together some initial answers to many of the biggest questions. More info will be available as we figure it out. Thanks for your support as we transfer into this next exciting phase.
The Blogger Team
Q: Why did Blogger sell to Google?
A: Well, on the surface, it may look obvious: A company of Google's size
could give Blogger the resources we needed to do things better, faster,
bigger. It's been a long four+ years since we started the company, and
not all of them were very fun. We had been making serious progress over
the last year or so, but bootstrapping (growing without funding) is
always a slow process, and we were a long way from where we wanted to
be. We wanted to offer a better service. And with Google, it wasn't just
their size, of course. They had clearly done an incredible job building
their technology and business, and we'd been big fans.
However, that doesn't mean it was an easy decision. We'd seen many small
companies doing interesting things die (or at least become
uninteresting) after getting acquired. It was only after becoming
convinced that: a) There were sensible, cool, powerful things we could
do on the technology/product side with Google that we couldn't do
otherwise; and b) It was a good company, run by people we liked, who
wanted the same things we did (i.e., they wouldn't screw up Blogger or
make our lives miserable).
We became convinced both of these were the case rather quickly after
thinking about the product side and talking to lots of Googlers.
Also, Google liked our logo. And we liked their food.
Q: Will Blogger go away?
A: Nope. Blogger is going to maintain its branding and services. While we
may integrate with Google in certain areas there will always be a
Blogger.
Q: What does the acquisition mean to Blogger users?
A: Greater reliability, new innovative products and a whole lot more
that we aren't ready to share quite yet (truth is, we're still figuring
a lot of it out). Right now, we're mostly bolstering up our hardware --
making things faster and more reliable -- and getting settled. Next,
we're going to be working on some killer ideas we've been wanting to
implement for years. It'll be fun.
Q: Will there be any changes to my account?
A: Not right now but if anything does change we will notify you ahead of
time, as we've done in the past.
Q: Will there be any changes to the Blogger products?
A: We will be making some changes in our product line. We've been
working on a new version of Blogger for some time now that will be
coming out soon. We'll tell you more as soon as we know.
Q: What are your plans for the future?
A: We are building a nuclear powered... Wait, you almost had us. We
aren't telling, yet! But we will have more in a few weeks.
Q: Does this mean my blog will rank higher in Google search results?
A: Nope. It does mean your blog might be stored physically closer to
Google but that's about it. The people at Google have done a great job
over the years making sure their search results are honest and objective
and there's no reason they would change that policy for Blogger or
anyone else.
Q: What happened to all the nice kids that worked at Blogger?
A: The ones that were here during the acquisition are still working on
Blogger and making it better. For the record, that includes Evan
Williams, Jason Shellen, Steve Jenson, Rudy Winnacker, Jason Sutter, and
Jason Goldman. Yes, that's a lot of Jasons, we know.
Q: Are they still as handsome as ever?
A:
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