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?