TV Squad

Weblogs, Inc.

Type	Subsidiary of AOL
Industry	Internet
Founded	2003
Key people	Brian Alvey Jason Calacanis
Products	enterprise blogging
Number of employees	est.150 worldwide
Parent	AOL
Website	www.weblogsinc.com

Weblogs, Inc. is a blog network of about 90 blogs, covering a variety of subjects, from computers and gaming to the likes of food and independent film. Roughly half of these blogs are regularly updated and maintained. Weblogs, Inc. was founded in September 2003 and has been owned by AOL since October 2005.

Weblogs, Inc. was founded by Brian Alvey and Jason Calacanis with an investment from Mark Cuban. The company was founded in the wake of Calacanis' Silicon Alley Reporter magazine.

By early 2004, Weblogs, Inc. and Gawker Media were establishing the two most important templates for networked blog empires. At that time, Weblogs, Inc. consisted of a few dozen blogs designed for professional readership, all residing as subdomains of weblogsinc.com. The exception was Engadget, a stand-alone site covering new technology in blog format. Engadget was co-founded by Peter Rojas, the former editor of Gizmodo in the Gawker Media network. At the start of 2006, 26 stand-alone sites populated the network, and over 50 subdomain blogs were in operation. A few of the company principals maintain personal blogs in the blogroll, and the home page is maintained in blog format. Entrepreneur Mark Cuban, an early investor in the company, keeps his personal weblog on the Weblogs, Inc. network.

At the start of 2006, the company structure consisted of an executive and administrative team of eight individuals, including the aforementioned Calacanis, Alvey, and Rojas. Thirty-two "lead" bloggers edited content channels or stand-alone sites, and managed topic-specific staffs of bloggers.

The network sells an inventory of display advertising space supplemented by Google AdSense. Revenue from AdSense alone was claimed to be approaching US$1,000,000 per year.

Weblogs, Inc. was purchased in October 2005 by AOL for a reported $25 million. While details were sketchy, it was reported in "Blogebrity: The Blog" that the bloggers would maintain all their rights, and would even come out of the deal in better condition. Headlines from blogs would begin to appear in AIM and at AOL.com, new contracts would be signed allowing bloggers to use their content offline, and AOL would be moving to an ad format that would match Weblogs, Inc. Weblogs, Inc. would be operated as an independent AOL-owned company.