Google to Buy FeedBurner

Jun 01, 04:04 PM

Current Headlines: By Elise Ackerman, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.

Jun. 1--Google announced today it has acquired FeedBurner, a Chicago-based company that distributes blog posts and digital advertising through a technology known as RSS, or Really Simple Syndication.

"As you know, we're constantly looking for ways to identify and offer new tools for content creators and website publishers," Susan Wojcicki, vice president of product management, wrote in a blog post.

Google scheduled a conference call to discuss the acquisition at 12:15 p.m.

Publishers have been increasingly concerned that the growing use of RSS feeds would allow readers to bypass the advertising that allows the publishers to remain in business. Instead of going to individual Web pages, people who use RSS readers get blog posts delivered to them as "feeds" each time a blog is updated.

The process is similar to receiving new e-mails in an inbox. Indeed, companies like Yahoo allow users of online mail to combine RSS and e-mail on a single Web page.

By providing ads in RSS feeds, FeedBurner gives publishers an additional way to make money.

"Each day, FeedBurner delivers feeds to millions of users around the world and offers unique and useful tools for publishers to analyze, optimize, and monetize their content," Wojcicki wrote.

Contact Elise Ackerman at eackerman@mercurynews.com or (408) 271-3774.

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