Sphere Searches the Blogosphere - Sphere Enters Blogosphere
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So what is a searcher to do if they're looking for a way to find the gems among the literally tens of millions of blogs out there? This is where Sphere (http://www.sphere.com) enters the picture. Founded in April 2005, Sphere has been indexing the blogosphere since January 2003. Still operating as a closed beta, Sphere has impressed the search mavens who have tried it out, including Jeremy Zawodny of Yahoo!.
It's not too surprising, given the company's background. Sphere supposedly started in the best shoestring tradition, with less than $200,000. But Sphere's chief officers and advisers are veterans of other Internet start-ups. One of their advisers, Toni Schneider, founded Oddpost and is now working at Yahoo!. In fact, Oddpost was going to bring it out themselves until they were bought by Yahoo!. Another adviser, Matt Mullenwegg, is associated with WordPress.
Tony Conrad is Sphere's CEO. If his name sounds familiar, it may be because he was a venture capitalist himself who has funded companies such as Oddpost. The other two people co-founding Sphere were also involved in the Waypath blog search engine.
Judging from the interest Sphere is exciting in venture capital companies, Conrad may have a winner on his hands. John Batelle noted in his search blog that KP partners Will Hearst and Kevin Compton have thrown angel money at the young company. Other names you might recognize that are backing the company include Doug MacKenzie (Radar Partners), Phil Black (Blacksmith Capital), David Mahoney, Vince Vanelli and Mike Winton.
There has been some speculation as to how Sphere will spend this money. If the company is going to be really successful, it needs to be able to scale, which means it needs a lot more machines. That's one way it could spend its angel money. It could also use a lot more distribution, of the sort it could gain from a deal with a major search engine -- and Yahoo! seems like the obvious choice, since one of its advisers is already working there. Indeed, Sphere could end up being bought by Yahoo! eventually. But enough about the company's background; it's time to explain why so many people are so excited about Sphere.
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