VeriSign buys weblogs.com for $2.3m

October 2005

Domain name registrar VeriSign has acquired the assets of Weblogs.com for $2.3m in cash.

Weblogs.com was set up by blog and RSS pioneer Dave Winer, and operates a so-called 'ping server' which allows blog operators to send out a notification that their site has been updated.

Search engines and news aggregators can use this information to update their databases.

The alternative would be to periodically scan each site, which could result in a time lapse of several days between the posting and the inclusion in the search engine database.

Weblogs.com's ping server receives up to two million pings a day. Winer is selling the service because he cannot keep pace with the rate at which it is growing.