WebProNews

This rumor had been kicking around for awhile. I emailed Bloglines CEO Mark Fletcher about it last week ...

... and he told me "Sorry, we don't have anything to announce." Well, now Mary Hodder has the scoop - Ask Jeeves is buying Bloglines.

The annoucement will follow on Monday, Mary reports. Mary notes that Ask is already feeding blog search results to Blogines via their blog.

From Mary Hodder at the Napsterization blog:

"Noted however that on Ask Jeeves new blog (it's a baby, three days old!) at the top, blog search, and the sidebar, Top Blogs and Most Popular Links go straight to Bloglines.

So Mark Fletcher will be their newest employee starting Monday. Congratulations, Mark and Bloglines!"

Steve Rubel is a PR strategist with nearly 16 years of public relations, marketing, journalism and communications experience. He currently serves as a Senior Vice President with Edelman, the largest independent global PR firm.He authors the Micro Persuasion weblog, which tracks how blogs and participatory journalism are changing the public relations practice.