Yahoo Buys Community Site MyBlogLog

Yahoo has bought MyBlogLog, a Web site that builds online communities around the blogs people like to read. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The acquisition, announced Jan. 8, fits Yahoo's strategy to keep its global audience of half a billion people on its Web properties longer by engaging them in social activities. MyBlogLog provides people with the online tools to create a profile and associate it with their blogs, enabling registered users of the site to form communities around those blogs.

"If blogging was originally about building a community and having a conversation with people in that community, then MyBlogLog provides the missing link that makes those connections more real," Chad Dickerson, senior director of Yahoo Developer Network, said in a company blog announcing the deal.

MyBlogLog, founded in 2005, is Yahoo's latest purchase in a string of acquisitions of sites offering social networking, including Flickr, Del.icio.us, and Upcoming.

Besides community features, MyBlogLog also offers analytics that provide some insight about what pages are being visited. Bloggers, for example, could use the feature to post the top five most-clicked links.

Yahoo didn't plan to make any immediate changes to the Web site or branding. MyBlogLog has five employees led by Chief Executive Scott Rafer and founders Eric Marcoullier and Todd Sampson. Workers and management would become a part of the Yahoo Developer Network Group, Dickerson said.