The rumors have been going around for some while, but it may be very close this time… Read/Write Web lets us know that Google will increase their inventory. This will mean that Feedburner, Meebo, edgeio and Commission Junction are in Google’s sights as potential acquisitions. This would be a very logical step, I think (RSS Ads, Google Reader, Google Base, etc), so when will it happen?
[...] Vincent is proclaiming that it may not be too far down the pike when Google decides to purchase FeedBurner, or some other online companies to expand their presence in an ever widening array of areas. It seems it would be all for the right reasons, more eyeballs, and FeedBurner would absolutely give them that. google_ad_client = “pub-9434882901267107″; google_ad_width = 300; google_ad_height = 250; google_ad_format = “300×250_as”; google_ad_type = “text_image”; google_ad_channel = “9838344704″; google_color_border = “EBFACE”; google_color_bg = “EBFACE”; google_color_link = “7ebc0b”; google_color_text = “000000″; google_color_url = “7ebc0b”; [...]
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That’d be a total bummer because it is highly unlikely that Google would provide anywhere near the level of customer service that FeedBurner as now constituted provides. But the people of FeedBurner are so wonderful that I rather hope they do get gobbled up so that they thereby can make the heaps of money they so richly deserve for the marvelous service they provide to so many people for free or so cheaply. They are a wonderful organization and it is just a shame that Goggle is getting everything and screwing it up–like Writerly. Let us hope that Microsoft or Yahoo gets FeedBurner instead of the gobbling Google. Neither of those is that much better at customer service, but it is distinctly unhealthy for a free society for one Internet company to own so many useful services and tools.