Pyra Labs
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| Type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Founded | January 1999 |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, CA, U.S. |
| Products | Blogger |
| Owner | |
| Website | www.pyra.com |
| Current status | active |
Pyra Labs is the company that coined the word "blog", creating the service Blogger. It was acquired by Google in 2003.
[edit] History
The co-founders were Evan Williams and Meg Hourihan, and the company's first product, also named "Pyra", was a web application which would combine a project manager, contact manager, and to-do list. In 1999, while still in beta, the rudiments of Pyra were repurposed into an in-house tool which became Blogger. The service was made available to the public in August 1999. Much of this coding was done by Paul Bausch and Matthew Haughey.
Initially, Blogger was completely free and there was no revenue model. When the company's seed money dried up, the employees continued without pay for weeks or, in some cases, months; but this could not last, and eventually Williams faced a mass walk-out by everyone including co-founder Hourihan. Williams ran the company virtually alone until he was able to secure an investment by Trellix after its founder Dan Bricklin became aware of Pyra's situation. Eventually advertising-supported Blogspot and Blogger Pro emerged.
In 2002, Blogger was completely re-written in order to license it to other companies, the first of which was Globo of Brazil.
In 2003, Google acquired Pyra.
