Thursday, Mar. 31, 2005 9:13 P.M.
Lovely, just freaking lovely.
Google to Get Into the Diary Biz
By ALFOR POLIS
Published on 3/31/2005
It's got a funky name -- Urshon Software Corporation -- and is based not in the heart of Silicon Valley but instead in San Diego, California. Yet this privately held company has been able to snag more than 20% of the Fortune 500 to buy its Internet product. Urshon is better known as Diary-x, Diarytown and Live Journal.
Yesterday, the company announced it was selling out to Google (Nasdaq: GOOG-News). The financial terms were not disclosed.
Urshon develops so-called Web analytics software. Essentially, it analyzes traffic that comes to a website. It will divide users into segments, based on things such as geography or new versus returning visitors; spot bottlenecks in the conversion of users into customers; identify the most valuable customers; monitor the time users spend on the site; and so on.
Urshon now holds possession of most all of the servers that control virtually every Diary and Online Journal site.
Like Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM � News) and RightNow (Nasdaq: RNOW � News), Urshon provides its software on a hosted basis. That is, Urshon hosts the software on its servers, and customers access it through a browser. Thus, there is little setup, and updates are always automatic.
Early this year, Urshon launched its latest product. A key feature is the measurement of the lifetime value of an online customer. What it means is that companies that advertise on the Web can get a much more accurate measure of the return on investment (ROI) of their campaigns by observing high-level tendencies in website traffic (and, hopefully, discerning meaningful trends in consumer behavior or sentiment via this information).
This Web analytics is critical to Google, since the company generates much of its revenues from advertisers. If these advertisers can see tangible ROI, they are likely to spend more. Thus, it is likely that the Urshon features will be a part of the services for Google advertisers.
Googles plans are to purchase the entire diary/blog community. More that $94 million has been earmarked for the purchase, though final purchase amount will not be known until all diary/blog site owners have approved the sales price.
Other less populated diary sites now host approximately 35% of the industry. These will be acquired by the end of May. Spokespersons for these sites are enthusiastic about the advantages to diarists and online journalist, though cries are being heard from many unhappy groups.
Many people polled seem to be upset with the impending changes that will take place when Google sets it�s plan in motion.
At the moment, diarists pay anywhere from 0 to $7.00 per month to belong to this fast-growing community. The versatility of each site also spans from bare bones to quite elaborate pages allowing for users to post their own pictures to using their own html coding.
These capabilities will soon come to an end.
Spokesperson Karl Black has stated to the press, that the new diaries will be less user friendly. Google will provide from 4 to 12 background templates for the pages and user�s pictures will not be allowed. Many other amenities will also fall by the wayside as the restructuring takes place. Gone will be the endless archiving pages allowed at most sites. Google states that users will be allowed to archive one month�s worth of entries only. The comment features so loved on some sites will be replaced by the users guestbook. The guestbook will be the only means of communication aside from the user�s e-mail.
Add to these changes that again because of the substantial bandwidth used now, the Google Diaries and Blogs will be restricted to no more than 10 links per page. This has some diarists in an uproar.
The object of all these changes is to cut down on bandwidth as this is by far the most costly part of the industry.
To help absorb some of these cost, the new Google diaries will come with a hefty price tag too. Costing approximately $10.00 per month, the paid sites will only be required to carry Google ads, while the free sites will incur the wrath of the ads and pop-ups. For people wishing to view these diaries, pop-up blockers will not help. If pop-ups are disabled, the site will not be viewable.
Though diarists feel this is a sell-out by the current owners, the list seems endless of those site owners scrambling to sell.
Top sites that have already chosen to sell are Diary-X, Live Journal, Diarytown, Diaryland and Blogger.com among others. �There doesn�t seem to be any holdouts thus far.�, says Black. �They are all ready to hand over the reigns as they seem to think that the diary/blog era is a thing of the past and that selling now make the best financial sense.
Google, of course does not see it that way.
Click For a list of Diary/Journal/Blog communities have already started the merger, and when this change will take effect, click Here
