I know, I know, starting to sound like that hysterical lady on the Simpsons always crying: “but what about the children?!”

Didn’t I just write a couple weeks ago that the primary people in blog networks who make money are the network owners? Time to applaud Jason Calacanis and Brian Alvey, congratulations guys! And that’s meant earnestly. They did their job as business owners. From a business owner perspective, I’m impressed and wish them the best.

From a writer’s perspective, I’m worried.

Although I haven’t read through every blog post on the acquistion, something I haven’t noticed a single blogger mention yet — I just can’t be the only person to wonder this amidst the flurry of virtual blogger high fives — I sure hope the writers get a raise out of this deal.

Paul Cheney is curious too: “I used to blog for WIN. If Calacanis splits his bounty with his bloggers, I’m sure I’m going to wish I still did. (Maybe he’ll grandfather me in. Nah, probably not.)”

According to various sources Weblogsinc (WIN), which may or may not (unknown) include its proprietary blog software Blogsmith, have been sold for an as yet to be disclosed amount (Reuters reports it as $25 million).

Rafat Ali is breaking the story that WeblogsInc, which includes blogs like Engadget and one of my favorites: Cinematical, is being bought by AOL:

paidContent.org has learned from multiple sources. The deal is done and should be announced this week…(Updated: it might be announced tomorrow AM now.) Among the other companies Weblogs Inc talked to included the usual suspects: News Corp, Yahoo and MSN…

Speculation of purchase price range from $20 - $35 million. Pocket change for AOL. But what about the writers? Does AOL come in and give an across the board raise? Does the competitive wage Calacanis said he strived for ever come to fruituion after this deal?

Ali doesn’t name the various sources and there doesn’t appear as of this writing anyway to be any official word yet from either camp — note the quote above says “might be announced tomorrow AM now” — but a lot of people are writing as if the deal is already inked and closed, so I sure hope this doesn’t turn out like Microsoft single DVD story which was bogus (and thankfully I didn’t blog that one).

Also pointed out by Ali, this is the second company Calacanis has sold in the last two years. With all this foolish bubble-like talk about Web 2.0, maybe that’s one defining characteristic: build stuff so it can be bought by bigger, richer fish. That is at least one business strategy anyway. I still believe that this is the strategy of Technorati, but unfortunately for Sifry and company nobody seems to be biting, at their price tag anyway.

I’m going to digest this proposed deal for a little longer, continuing to read what others have to say and wait for the official word before expanding too much deeper on my thoughts (although you can guess by the title and theme throughout this entry what players I’m concerned about).

Generally speaking, though, I’ve always been fond of AOL’s writing areas. I do not really care for AOL the company, but I’ve always held the AOL writing areas in high regard like their keyword: novel area which I used to work for (er, volunteeer for, should I say?) as a NOVL back in the 90’s. I can definitely see why AOL would be interested in buying a blog network.

Around the web
Software Only congratulates Jason and the team and adds that Wondir has also been acquired by a new healthcare startup.
Russell Buckley thinks Weblogsinc isn’t worth the money: “…my bet is Jason has cannily sold out at the top of the market. It’s yet another sign of the bubble that’s going on.”
The Stalwart notes a prophetic Jason Calacanis quote to Jeff Jarvis from May 2004: “When pressed by Jeff Jarvis, the moderator, to say how his latest company would make him, Calacanis said: ‘$20-30m — and this time I’m going to take the money.’”
Anita Campbell puts her finger on why these network of niche blogs exist: And there you were, wondering ‘what is the point of all those networks of niche blog sites that keep popping up?’ The answer: why, to sell them to some big media company, of course.”
Paradox1x: “They have built an online media empire and are a template that hordes of others are following.”
Susan Mernit thinks the deal makes sense and explains why and sends along her congrats.

A few bloggers mentioned that Gawker Media might be for sale too.

Nick Denton slays those rumours: “For what it’s worth, Gawker isn’t for sale. The whole point about blogs is that they’re not part of big media. Consolidation defeats the purpose. It’s way too early.”

Did this post make you go hmm?

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