Yahoo! is buying web community service MyBlogLog for over $10m,
Forbes reports
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Launched in 2005 by Cloudspace, a group of five dispersed across the US, MyBlogLog allows users to carry a badge of themselves around the web that is added to sites for fellow browsers to see when they visit.
The tool allows site owners to turn their audience into an automatic community and comes with a basic metrics offering.
Bradley Horowitz, vice president of product strategy at Yahoo!, told Forbes that MyBlogLog, like previous social networking acquisitions Flickr and del.icio.us, would retain its individual identity, though users would get to log in with a Yahoo! account while some of the portal’s other services would be made available to MyBlogLog groups.
MyBlogLog chairman Scott Rafer said the service has 45,000 registered blogs and could sell data to advertisers. Despite a slow start, the service has noticeably begun to take off in recent weeks.
MyBlogLog could be a key part of Yahoo!’s strategy to leverage people power through social media to let people share and recommend between friends and groups.