AOL celebrates 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, http://tmz.com, and Asylum, http://asylum.com, FanHouse, http://fanhouse.com, BloggingStocks, http://bloggingstocks.com, and Spinner, http://spinner.com. AOL is now the largest global publisher of owned-and-operated blogs.

"The acquisition of Weblogs was game-changing for AOL and the entire blogging community," said Marty Moe, Senior Vice President, AOL Money & Finance, News, Sports, Weblogs and KOL. "Weblogs pioneered the development of professional blogging, and AOL accelerated its growth and leadership in branded content publishing by deeply integrating Weblogs throughout AOL's substantial network of programming channels. In doing so, AOL transformed its publishing model and increased its relevancy and reach for advertisers, while advancing best-of-breed sites in key consumer interest areas."

AOL's owned and operated blog network, including Weblogs, Inc. and AOL's other blog properties, is now the largest in the world in terms of unique visitors, according to August 2008 comScore Media Metrix, with a worldwide blog audience of more than 30 million unique visitors and more than 650 million page views monthly. Leading brands in AOL's blog network include TMZ, http://tmz.com, Engadget, http://engadget.com, Asylum, http://asylum.com, FanHouse, http://fanhouse.com, Autoblog, http://autoblog.com, Spinner, http://spinner.com, Joystiq, http://joystiq.com, BloggingStocks, http://bloggingstocks.com, ParentDish, http://parentdish.com, Cinematical, http://cinematical.com, TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog), http://tuaw.com, DownloadSquad, http://downloadsquad.com, GreenDaily, http://greendaily.com, Luxist, http://luxist.com, and others.

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.

"CES's choice of Engadget as its Official Blog Partner further cements the publication's place as the leading voice in consumer electronics coverage. Our award-winning site will cover the 2009 CES with the fast-paced, up-to-the-minute reporting that has made Engadget the market leader and final word in the world of technology journalism," said Joshua Topolsky, Editor-in-chief, Engadget. "CEA is one of the global consumer electronics industry's most powerful trade groups, and CES is the industry's most important and anticipated event, hands down."

"The online technology community is of continuing importance to us and this partnership shows the crucial role that blog sites like Engadget play in bringing CES' hot product news to a worldwide audience, before, during and after the show," said Karen Chupka, senior vice president of events and conferences for CEA, the producer of the International CES. "We estimate that some 20,000 new products are launched at CES each year and the Engadget editorial team is able to bring all the hot product news, across dozens of different categories, to life for both consumers and technology professionals."

Engadget will provide live coverage of the 2009 International CES on both its domestic and international sites, and will have extensive presence at the show, including interviews, product news and reviews, updates on CES events and commentary by a team of Engadget editors from across the globe. Engadget's expansion into the international market will provide an opportunity for consumers and advertisers around the world to follow up-to-the minute news from the show.

Obsessable covers the latest in the world of technology, including cell phones, cameras, and HDTVs - obsessively, of course. Obsessable is powered by the rapid content development engine, Crowd Fusion.

Like Weblogs Inc before it, Crowd Fusion is being built on a custom built content management system (at Weblogs Inc it was BlogSmith). The angle is that the new CMS allows the team to do things they think are important in a better way, without relying on an existing platform such as MovableType (which powers Gawker Media sites among others) and WordPress.

Backed with $3 million from investors including Marc Andreessen and Ross Levinsohn, the list of team members reads like a walk down Weblogs Inc memory lane. Along with Alvey, Barb Dybwad was a former producer at Engadget, CTO Craig Wood was formerley a member of the Blogsmith team, COO Judith Meskill was at one time COO of Weblogs Inc, and CMO Steve Friedman was on the Weblogs Inc sales team...and that's just the ones we know about so far.

Is this blogfading? No. Are these blogging layoffs...yes, but why? Both blogs have impressive Technorati rankings. So why then? Where's the explanation from AOL? I feel they have an obligation to justify this decision. Actually I feel the AdJab guys should have been a little more upfront as well?

The wizardry of contextual advertising and blog publishing platforms will allow internet publications to flourish in a thousand niches. Well, that was the theory. The practice? AOL is closing down a slew of smaller blogs it bought from entrepreneur-provocateur and Valleywag staple, Jason Calacanis, in 2005. The bulk of AOL's ad revenues from its blog network, running at more than $1m a month according to Calacanis, come from a few star brands such as Engadget, Autoblog and Joystiq. They're in traditional broad categories: consumer electronics, autos and video games. The Time Warner internet unit has told editors of smaller and unprofitable sites that they will be shuttered at the end of the month. So far, we're hearing lesser-known titles such as BBHub, Divester, DV Guru and PVR Wire; do let us know about others, so we can establish a count. Grounds: budget cutbacks. The new publishing? Much like the old.

My guess is they would consolidate DVGuru and PVRWire into Engadget and EngadgetHD, BBHUB into EngadgetMobile, and Divester into Gadling.

Niche blogs are great, but when you're running a scale business like AOL is you're better off focusing on your HUGE winners like Autoblog, Engadget, Joystiq, etc.

This opportunity comes with a challenge. This year, aside from the usual self-deluded promises to eat better and exercise more, my New Year's resolution includes a pledge to be more in touch, especially with the elusive 18-34 age group.

I have no illusions that members of this coveted demographic will suddenly take to a guy as old as their fathers. But I want to understand them.

So I'm asking for their help in building a blog. The technical staff at The Post will handle the nuts and bolts. What I'm looking for are ways to encourage participation from people who aren't already regular correspondents. I am especially interested in Internet links that will let people go from my blog to other blogs or to websites that may decide to link back.

Now, I need some other ideas. I'm thinking the usual political suspects - ColoradoPols.com, ToTheRight.org, Colorado Confidential, the Drudge Report, that sort of thing. But I'm looking for some range here, say a link to Dan Savage, whose Savage Love sex column entertains my 20-something colleague Chris Frates.

The blog can only be so blue. But I wouldn't mind hearing from folks who are over-pierced and under 30 about what's on their minds. My hope for the blog is to expose myself - in a strictly intellectual sense, of course - to new ideas.

***

More than anything, though, I need participation and ideas outside the collection of usual suspects battling over Iraq, immigration, gun control and abortion. Those things will, of course, be fair game on the blog. But people certainly have lives outside of ideological flashpoints.

But what is perhaps most interesting about the new Custom Search is that publishers (large or small) can allow anyone or selected colleagues, friends or community members to contribute to that index. For example, if I own a site dedicated to stamp collecting and have a group of regular contributors or trusted readers I can allow those individuals to contribute their selections to this index. This gives the index the ability to evolve and grow over time -- and makes it "social."

Some have described the situation in Iraq as a tightening noose, noting that "time is not on our side"and that "morale is down." Others have described a "very dangerous" turn of events and are "extremely concerned."

Who are they that have expressed these concerns? In fact, these are the exact words of terrorists discussing Iraq -- Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his associates -- who are describing their own situation and must be watching with fear the progress that Iraq has made over the past three years.

The terrorists seem to recognize that they are losing in Iraq. I believe that history will show that to be the case.

Fortunately, history is not made up of daily headlines, blogs on Web sites or the latest sensational attack. History is a bigger picture, and it takes some time and perspective to measure accurately.

Colbert: So edumacate me here: A blog is what? I know the kids do it, I hear it all the time with, like, iPod, I hear those two terms thrown around a lot.

Sullivan: It's almost like you have truth that you give us every night. But some of us, we just struggle every day to put whatever little bit of truth we can find on the internet and call it a blog. It's literally a web log, it's a log of your random, incessant thoughts, on the web.

Colbert: So a blog is web log? Is there an apostrophe, or do you guys not even have the strength for that? You're just gonna jam two words together?

Sullivan: Over time it just became a "blog."

Colbert: "Blog." It's a beautiful word. It's musical. So, uh, you type your thoughts and they appear on a screen instantly and that’s it. That's what you do?

Sullivan: That's what I do.

Colbert: They used to call that typing. I don't trust you guys, because anybody could do that, right?

Sullivan: You don't. The only way you can trust anybody who blogs is by following them and making sure they're not full of it all the time. The one sign of a good blogger is that he immediately corrects a mistake. And unlike the New York Times, where they can put all of their millions of mistakes in a little box in the corner every day which you never read, a blogger has to fess up, right there, just like you do every night.

Welcome to our new blog, The Way We Work, a place we hope you'll visit often for reports and comments on career and workplace issues.

For the past 10 years I've written about career/workplace issues for Newsday. Before that I was an editor at McCall's magazine. Before that I was an editor at the American Banker newspaper. And before that, I was a middle school English teacher. So, I'm also a career changer.

In a bid to increase traffic and reap more online advertising revenues, WashingtonPost.com will allow articles to remain free on the site for 60 days before they go behind the subscribers-only wall. Previously, stories were only accessible for 14 days.

The switch is an acknowledgement of the role of blogs, search and RSS, which have all worked to keep news stories in the public eye for longer periods of time. Company executive point to the news operation's recent scoop regarding secret CIA prisons in foreign countries -- a story that has continued to generate links and buzz for weeks after its debut.

"For us to take that article offline after 14 days really does us a disservice," Jim Brady, executive editor of the site, told ClickZ News.

These new blog and search links tend to drive traffic directly to stories, rather than to the front page of the site, contributing to the importance of individual articles. About half the traffic at WashingtonPost.com now comes through these "side doors," according to Brady.

The entries were part of a new program called Amazon Connect, begun late last month to enhance the connections between authors and their fans - and to sell more books - with author blogs and extended personal profile pages on the company's online bookstore site. So far, Amazon has recruited a group of about a dozen authors, including novelists, writers of child care manuals and experts on subjects as diverse as real estate investing, science, fishing and the lyrics of the Grateful Dead.

"The program gives people who are interested in a particular author a way to get new insights into them, and gives the authors a way to develop more of a one-on-one relationship with readers," said Jani Strand, a spokeswoman for Amazon. The authors write on "anything they'd like their readers to know about them," Ms. Strand said, including what inspired their books and details about their experiences. Authors are free to update their blogs as often or as little as they like, and a linked profile page has information about other books, reading recommendations, personal information and, in some cases, e-mail addresses.

Ms. Wolitzer, in an interview, said she welcomed the blog as an opportunity to address readers more often than she usually might - that is, every two or three years, when a new book comes out. "Anything that can get fiction on people's radar is good," she said.

Carolyn K. Reidy, president of the adult publishing group at Simon & Schuster, which has already signed up at least 10 authors for Amazon Connect, said that when Amazon approached her company this year with the idea of author blogs, she quickly embraced it.

"It enables the author to have a conversation with readers on an ongoing basis, easily and in an ongoing place," she said. "We hope that somebody who reads one of an author's books will go back and discover one of the rest."

Hef is a really good guy. We watched the fight together the other night. I think he's a really special guy - he's the greatest guy ever. He doesn't have his nose up in the air like every other rich guy ... he's down to earth. He eats pizza just like all of us. We go to McDonald's all the time. He's a regular guy.