The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Originally launched in January 2004, Weblogs operates a network of 85 blogging sites. The company currently features more than 100 independent, freelance bloggers who churn out more than 1,000 blog postings every week.
According to stats from Weblogs, the company’s range of consumer and trade market blogs draw in over 30 million monthly views. Popular blogs off the site include technology blog Engadget, automotive blog Autoblog, travel blog Gadling and parenting blog Blogging Baby.
Although AOL is acquiring the company, terms of the deal will make Weblogs a wholly owned, stand-alone subsidiary of AOL, which plans to link to Weblogs' 85 separate blogs through various AOL channels, such as the Personal Finance Channel, the Autos Channel, the Travel Channel and at AOL News. Plans are also in place to integrate Weblogs’ content within other AOL properties, including Moviefone, AOL Music and Netscape.
“This combination allows our audiences to be able to do a 'deep-dive' into a vast array of compelling topics that keep them interested and entertained on our network of properties, day after day,” Jim Bankoff, executive vice president of programming & products at AOL said. “Weblogs provides AOL with the ability to quickly launch websites and communities across areas [that] our audience is passionate about, and advertisers are interested in.”
Earlier this year, Weblogs was cited by Fortune as one of the “10 Tech Trends to Watch in 2005,” and in February was named by BusinessWeek as one of “Five Net Names to Watch in '05.”
Jason McCabe Calacanis, co-founder and CEO of Weblogs, said his company has continued to grow, but that the partnership with AOL was vital in order to push the company to the next level of blogging success.
“We realized that taking our network to the next level required a partner not only with a significant audience, but the advertising expertise to leverage it,” he said.
The Weblogs buy marks AOL’s third acquisition this year, following the acquisitions of Wildseed and Xdrive.
