"Remember Halsey Minor and how Vignette came to be born out of publishing necessity...How it put him in the very interesting position of software pioneer and content publisher (though not under the same corporate umbrella)? Whether it's Nick Denton developing tools with an ex-US software team or Mike Orren at Pegasus News or possible some other surprise player working on a platform under the radar, blogging software, blogging networks and the definition of what a blog is and when it begins to be something else are all in for some surprises pretty soon."

Susan sez: I don't think investing in tools is particularly surprising, but it is a good point. After all, a core part of the success of Weblogs Inc was the great software Brian Alvey built; one has to assume the Gawker platform brought them this far.