for W3c validation

Well, it’s official. Both TechCrunch & Mashable reported the news today — MyBlogLog has sold to Yahoo! (this time for real) and will be part of the Developers Network. You may remember that the deal was rumored back in November, but never got finalized. I was just chatting with Eric, one of the co-founders, on IM and he’s excited about the deal (I guess it’s hard not to be when you just make that kind of money – $10-12 million is being reported).

Regarding my actual opinion on the deal? I think it’s fantastic for the Eric, Todd, Scott, and the rest of the MyBlogLog crew. Though I firmly believe they could have succeeded with this on their own in time — and probably made more money in the process, I understand that the security that a deal like this brings is hard to pass up. It seems like Yahoo! has done a great job with their acquisitions in the web 2.0 space such as Flickr and del.icio.us — so hopefully MyBlogLog doesn’t turn out any different. I can certainly see MBL driving yahoo!’s social networking strategy (& being in the center of the strategy) — there is no question the team knows how to build a community and I can’t wait to see what they can do with the added resources available by being a part of Yahoo. I absolutely love the company (in depth coverage here) and wish them the best! Congrats!

Update: I just found this fantastic analysis of the strategic implications for Yahoo! over at Search Engine Journal.