Pyra Labs - History

History

Pyra was co-founded by Evan Williams and Meg Hourihan. 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 of charge and there was no revenue model. In January 2001, Pyra asked Blogger users for donations to buy a new server. When the company's seed money dried up around the same time, 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.com of Brazil.

In 2003, Pyra was acquired by Google.

Read more about this topic:  Pyra Labs

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    He wrote in prison, not a History of the World, like Raleigh, but an American book which I think will live longer than that. I do not know of such words, uttered under such circumstances, and so copiously withal, in Roman or English or any history.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    A people without history
    Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
    Of timeless moments.
    —T.S. (Thomas Stearns)

    Well, for us, in history where goodness is a rare pearl, he who was good almost takes precedence over he who was great.
    Victor Hugo (1802–1885)