Blogs are hot again, baby. Right after Web browser inventor Marc Andreessen announces a $300 million venture capital fund for tech startups, he personally raises a $500,000 to $1,000,000 round for the profitable political blog Talking Points Memo. [Read more…]
Weblogs Inc. now on its third year with AOL
AOL is celebrating the third anniversary of its acquisition of Weblogs, Inc. this month. In 2005, Weblogs had a large portfolio of niche blogs targeted at business and professional users, in addition to a general readership. Since then, Weblogs has honed its portfolio to 29 blogs focused on major consumer passion points such as technology, autos, finance, video games and travel. Since 2005, Weblogs has seen worldwide unique visitors climb nearly 1,000% (122% annually, on average) and page views rise over 1,500% (154% annually, on average), according to August 2008 comScore Media Metrix.
In addition to Weblogs’ own growth, the acquisition was instrumental to AOL’s launch of successful sites such as TMZ, Asylum, FanHouse, BloggingStocks, and Spinner.
Over the next 12 months, AOL plans to launch of number of new blog brands in important consumer interest areas, as well as aggressively continue the expansion of its blogs internationally.
World’s Oldest Blogger Dies
Several weeks ago I wrote about Randall Butisingh, one of the worlds’ oldest bloggers at 95 years old.
At the time, I didn’t realize what a spring chicken Randall was.
We now pay our respects to Olive Riley, born 1899. The 108-year-old Australian woman passed away over the weekend.
From recounting life through two world wars to sharing her thoughts on Washing Day…
You 21st century people live a different life than the one I lived as a youngster in the early 1900s. Take Washing Day, for instance. These days you just toss your dirty clothes into a washing machine, press a few switches, and it’s done.
I remember scratching around to find a few pieces of wood to fire the copper for Mum. Sometimes I’d find a broken wooden fruit box that I’d split with a tommyhawk. Sometimes I’d gather some twigs and dead branches, and use them for firewood.
When the water in the copper began to boil, Mum would add a cupful of soap chips, and throw in a cube of Reckitt’s Blue wrapped in a muslin bag to whiten the clothes. Then she put in all the dirty clothes, first rubbing out the stains with a bar of Sunlight soap. She used a corrugated washing board for that.
Olive will be missed.