Bloglines is cool and ASK will not do evil things to it :-) but we already have world class blog search - it's called Feedster
LATER: I meant a daily comparison of PubSub, Feedster and Technorati NOT just PubSub and Feedster.
Disclosure - Friends with the PubSub guys. Met and like Scott Johnson of Feedster and like Dave Sifry and Kevin Marks but my current searches for links to Roland Tanglao.com work best in Feedster and PubSub and not Technorati. And before Dave Sifry et al leave cool, friendly diplomatic comments, let me say this: I will start soon, a daily comparison between PubSub and Feedster which should once and for all expose the data I have been seeing with respect to blog search in an objective and fair manner (and I will call and email Dave to make sure that I am using Technorati properly). And afterwards, after Bryght's 1.0, I will do a four way shootout Feedster versus PubSub versus Technorati versus Blogdigger (which by the way seems to be an unsung hero of the blog search world!). And one more thing: I know PubSub is prospective search and the rest are retrospective search and so I will be comparing apples and oranges but so be it!
From John Battelle's Searchblog: UPDATED: It's Official - Bloglines Sold to Ask.:
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So, I asked Jim Lanzone, Ask's head of search and the architect of the deal, what are you going to do with Bloglines? "Our plan is to leave it alone for now," Lanzone answered. "We'll integrate it across properties, but if it never makes us a dime directly, it will make money for us indirectly."
In other words, Bloglines is growing like a weed, has tons of users, and more interestingly, tons of data about what those users read. Those profiles might make for some serious endemic advertising plays down the road. Both Fletcher and Lanzone concur. "The profile a user makes on Bloglines is a pretty good proxy for a user's interest," Lanzone said. "But step one is to let Mark blow it out, and see where it goes."
So don't expect any AdWords or other monetization, at least at first, and not in your face. Lanzone took pains to make sure I understood that *he* understood he has a good thing, and doesn't want to f*ck it up.
One thing that will come out of this, Lanzone said, is "world class blog search." Stay tuned, Ask is getting interesting...
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