Weblogs Inc Sale to AOL Confirmed – Here’s the Inside Word

>WIN headlines will start appearing on AOL home page, netscape, AIM etc

That’s huge! Let’s hope it does remain truly independent. I wonder if any of their blogs have or will ever criticise AOL…

I personally think its great to see a blog network getting this sort of attention from a major company. I am really beginning to think that blog networks are the future of the news industry.

I wonder if AOL will attempt to control content at all in the future…

Hope it’s not another Nullsoft.

I don’t know, (nor do I care) if you have a nameless source, but as a current WIN blogger, I gave my $.02 on my personal blog. Overall, this is a positive development for both the blogosphere and MSM. Of course, it could be detrimental too, but isn’t that up to all of us who make up the blogosphere?

Corporate America could learn much from the WIN business model as well as other blog network models. We might be focusing on WIN today, but there are plenty of other good blog networks that contribute quality content as well.

Is it really an exciting time to be a Weblogs Inc. blogger? I’m not convinced. I don’t have the facts, and maybe I’m wrong but this is how it looks to me:

The employees of Weblogs — the bloggers in this case — are probably part-time and make modest wages by newspaper standards. (This is a guess on my part, but probably a good one) Does that change — do they make more money as a result of the sale? Your memo seems to allude to the potential of an increase but no fortune.

Do the bloggers — who helped make Weblogs successful — get any of the proceeds from the $25 million? Maybe they have, and if so — that’s wonderful, but if not read on.

If you were working for an e-commerce start-up and the company was sold or went public, chances are you made money because of stock options.

What I see happening is this: Writers — bloggers — are taking *jobs* for no money or scant money with start-up firms that happen to be blogs. They are contributing ideas and copy with no promise of reward, nothing akin to a stock option or a piece of the business if they help build something valuable.

The Weblogs Inc. sale ought to be a wake-up call to bloggers. The message from this sale seems to be that their contributions and efforts may be worth more than they realize.

If I was working for a start-up, contributing time, effort and ideas for little pay or no pay, I want to be certain that if I helped build a valuable property that there would be a significant reward for that effort. I think some writers might be bitter if owners pocket millions and the people who were asked to give their all to help a new business are left with nothing or little.

Again, I don’t know the details of the Weblogs Inc./AOL agreement, so these comments are general.

But the $25 million sale price is an eye opener and should prompt bloggers to assess the value they bring to a start-up and whether they should have the same potential for reward as those who work for other companies.

(Regarding the contract terms for writers .. I LOL over this one: “The new contract will allow the bloggers to own their own content offline” — big whoop. Is there any evidence of an offline blogging content?)

I came across an interesting entry showing that AOL paid $500 to $900 per outside link – while there are other factors involved, it’s an interesting take on this purchase.

I came across an interesting entry showing that AOL paid $500 to $900 per outside link – while there are other factors involved, it’s an interesting take on this purchase.

I foresee some stifling of free speech. If the network is owned by AOL, then most likely any anti-AOL (or any of its holdings) blogs and posts will be promptly removed. This prevents bloggers from freely talking about whatever is on their mind. I have a further blog about this on my site:

Its hard to believe that a web logging site is actually worth that dollar amount. Who would have thought back in the day that something the is intangible could be a gain in so much value?