Technology

FeedBurner

Founders: Eric Lunt, Steve Olechowski, Dick Costolo, Matt Shobe
Acquisition Price: $100 million, according to TechCrunch
Buyer: Google
Funding: $8 million from Mobius Venture Capital, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Portage Ventures, Sutter Hill, and Union Square Ventures

The Runup:
When FeedBurner launched its free RSS feed management tool for bloggers and other Web publishers in 2004, its sleek design won high praise and attracted hundreds of thousands of users, but it was unclear how the technology could be monetized. The answer was syndicated advertising, or targeted text links much like Google's AdSense, but served within an RSS reader, which the company began testing in 2004 and started charging for in 2005. Google announced its mostly cash acquisition in May.

The Payoff:
As part of the deal, FeedBurner's co-founders and 30-person staff will work for Google for at least a few years, but they get to stay put in their Chicago headquarters. The search company hasn't announced formal plans to tap FeedBurner's vast pool of user data, but a note sent to account holders shortly after the acquisition hinted that this was in store: "If you take no action by June 15, 2007, the rights to your data will transfer from FeedBurner to Google," the message said.