So Ask Jeeves picks up Bloglines. (Enough people have commented on this since Mary Hodder posted it that I certainly hope it’s true… otherwise many blogs will have to do another round of corrections.)
Ask made almost as much money ($260MM) as CNET Networks ($291MM) in 2004. I didn’t know that. 2005 revenue is forecasted as higher than CNET Networks. With no offense intended to the folks at Ask, I really don’t come across many folks who use their brands, but search revenue (keyword advertising) is certainly one nice cash cow for folks these days, even if you are not Google. I wonder how much residual traffic comes in to Excite, iWon, and MyWay, which I recognize as portal/search wannabes from my days at Snap.com/NBCi. It takes a portal wanna-be to recognize one! In any event, I’ll be curious to see what this means for Bloglines, and when Mark Fletcher or Ask confirm the news.