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The Sphere "Related Content" widget appears on a number of news sites and blogs, having gained appeal as far up the media ladder as the venerable New York Times. Sphere's utility made it a desirable takeover target, with AOL announcing today it had acquired the company.

"Not only will it let us enhance content on our own sites, it will let us distribute our content across Sphere’s growing third-party publisher network," Ron Grant, President and COO of AOL, said in a statement. AOL has been one of those publishers using sphere on a couple of its online properties.

"We are joining AOL at an opportune time. AOL is doing what great, sustainable business do every so often – they’re reinventing themselves," Sphere CEO and co-founder Tony Conrad said on their blog. Om Malik weighed in with praise in noting the Conrads treated him as a proverbial son.

At TechCrunch, Michael Arrington suggested AOL paid in the range of $25 million for Sphere. As is customary when a startup is acquired, terms of the deal were not disclosed.

AOL's acquisition of Sphere follows some other blog-related changes on their network. Popular tech site Engadget and other AOL blogs were redesigned and relaunched as the AOL Technology Network last week.