Automattic, the parent company of WordPress, is the new owner of the two-letter domain name WP.com. The domain was previously owned by Yahoo.
WP has been widely used as the acronym for WordPress for a long time, so it was a good decision to acquire the domain. Matt Mullenweg of Automattic writes on the official WP blog that Automattic had been trying to buy WP.com from Yahoo for about five years, until they finally succeeded a few days ago.
A sale price has not been reported yet, but it’s likely that the sale of the domain will be included in Yahoo’s quarterly report, so we may find out more about this domain sale soon.
In addition to WP.com, Automattic also purchased Blo.gs from Yahoo. Blo.gs is a ping-updating service for bloggers, which was acquired by Yahoo in 2005 but never really got off the ground. It still has a large user base, though. According to Mullenweg, the Automattic crew is going to give the service “a refresh, while continuing its reputation for reliability”.
These sales may be a sign of Yahoo concentrating on its search and online advertising business, while also raising much-needed cash. Yahoo is still struggling for a bigger share of the search engine market, so using more energy for its core business is a wise decision, in my opinion.
(Sources: WordPress Blog, Matt Mullenweg, Toni Schneider)
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I am glad to see yahoo finally giving up on this. They need to focus more on their search and marketing and less on their sideline businesses.
For the record if Matt and the gang need more domains I have several I would be happy to sell at a fraction of what they paid yahoo. Think about it mysizl.com could be their new social media outlet…
Interesting,
So far wp.com just redirects to wordpress.com. I wonder if they, in the future, will move myblog.wordpress.com to myblog.wp.com? Unlikely, but not impossible. I would give the users the choice anyway.
Wordpress enjoys high recall rate, WP has a low profile so far. It is all about brand building.
Blo.gs – a good one, is still parked with Yahoo!
I wonder it Wordpress, would also like to go for blogge.rs? A community build by a Serbian blogger.
Cheers!
Blo.gs is not sold to Automattic, it was transferred to Automattic for safekeeping and further development.
See here:
http://ma.tt/2009/04/blogs-lives-on/