Weblogs.com

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Weblogs.com is a website created by UserLand Software and later maintained by Dave Winer. It launched in late 1999 as a free, registration-based web crawler monitoring weblogs, was converted into a ping-server in October 2001, [1] and came to be used by most blog applications.(Web-services like Feedster and Technorati monitor Weblogs.com for its list of the latest blog posts, generated in response to pings via XML-RPC.) The site also provided free hosting to many early bloggers.

UserLand Software

UserLand Software is a US-based software company, founded in 1988, that sells web content management, as well as blogging software packages and services.

Dave Winer software developer

Dave Winer is an American software developer, entrepreneur, and writer who resides in New York City. Winer is noted for his contributions to outliners, scripting, content management, and web services, as well as blogging and podcasting. He is the founder of the software companies Living Videotext, Userland Software and Small Picture Inc., a former contributing editor for the Web magazine HotWired, the author of the Scripting News weblog, a former research fellow at Harvard Law School, and current visiting scholar at New York University's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute.

Web crawler Internet bot that systematically browses the World Wide Web, typically for the purpose of Web indexing (web spidering)

A Web crawler, sometimes called a spider or spiderbot and often shortened to crawler, is an Internet bot that systematically browses the World Wide Web, typically for the purpose of Web indexing.

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In mid-June 2004, Winer temporarily shut down free blog-hosting services there, without any notice, citing server and personal problems. Criticism from many bloggers was intense. Dave Winer, who had originally promised to get the blogs back up and running within a two-week period, was able to restore them much faster thanks to help from Rogers Cadenhead.

Rogers Cadenhead is a computer book author and web publisher who served from 2006 to 2008 as chairman of the RSS Advisory Board, a group that publishes the RSS 2.0 specification. He graduated from Lloyd V. Berkner High School in Richardson, Texas in 1985 and the University of North Texas in 1991.

According to Wired Magazine, [2] "What was decried as the death of a blog universe when Dave Winer shut down free blog host Weblogs.com turned out to be little more than a four-day server outage surrounded by a heck of a flame war."

In October, 2005, VeriSign bought the Weblogs.com ping-server from Winer, [3] promising that services currently free there would still be free. The podcasting-related web site audio.weblogs.com was also included in the $2.3 million deal. [4]

In May 2009 Weblogs.com was sold to a private investor group as part of the deal that saw Moreover Technologies divested from VeriSign. [5]

Moreover Technologies is a provider of business intelligence, media monitoring and news aggregation products for enterprises, also offering free news feeds for consumers. Moreover was founded in 1998 by Nick Denton, David Galbraith, and Angus Bankes. In October 2014, Moreover was acquired by LexisNexis.

See also

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References

  1. Winer, Dave (2001-10-21). "Getting ready to flip the switch". Weblogs.com. Retrieved 2010-10-06.
  2. "Weblogs.com Rises From the Flames". Wired. 2004-06-23.
  3. Miller, Rich (2005-10-07). "VeriSign Acquires Weblogs.com, Declares War on 'Splogs'". Netcraft. Retrieved 2010-10-06.
  4. VeriSign Acquires Dave Winers Weblogs.com
  5. Moreover 3.0: We divest out of VeriSign

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